


Instant Pleasure

by 100percentsassy



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Premature Ejaculation, hahahahahahahahahahhahaaaha this was supposed to be a PWP, not intense at all, ok also there are going to be like very very very light bdsm overtones in the second part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-15 08:36:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8049550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100percentsassy/pseuds/100percentsassy
Summary: This fic has everything!  College Roommates!  Mario Kart!  Julie Andrews!  Demonstrative Pronouns!  Flamboyant Dom Louis!  Premature Ejaculation!  Niall!





	1. Chapter 1

“Hic, haec, hoc.  Huius, huius, huius.  Huic, huic, huic...”

Louis rolled over in bed and pulled out his earbuds, casually letting his shirt ride up his stomach.  “You sound like you have the hiccups,” he said.

Harry didn’t look up from his notes.  He’d been hunched over his desk for the better part of an hour, muttering unintelligible words to himself.  Louis could have ignored it and gone back to watching Deadpool on his laptop, but he really didn't think it was healthy or normal for someone to be studying this hard a week into their freshman year of college.  Plus, he had already admitted to himself that his new roommate was hot, and thus not ignorable.

“Hunc, hanc, hoc…”

“Hork, herk, hooey,” Louis added, in an obnoxiously loud voice.

Harry jerked his head up and caught Louis just as he was stretching his body out to its full length and fluttering his eyelashes.  “Shh,” he said, reddening slightly.  “I have to memorize these.”

“Hoppy, happy, hippy…”

Harry snorted, trying to contain a smile, and threw his hands up.  When he looked over at Louis his eyes were big on purpose, like he was attempting to look annoyed but couldn’t actually disguise the fact that Louis was about to make him laugh.  “I can’t believe.  Out of all the possible roommates,” he said, shaking his head.

“You can’t believe you got the best one?”

Harry’s eyes skated down Louis’s body for a brief moment.  Then he looked away and started fiddling with his pencil.  “Look, I have my first quiz on Monday in Latin, and I promised myself that I was going to get a head start on studying.  I can’t let myself get distracted…”

Louis scoffed.  “I am the  _ least _ distracting person ever.”

“That’s not true,” Harry mumbled, looking down at his lap.  There was a moment of silence as he bit his lip and scrubbed his hands down his thighs.  “Um, anyway,” he said, “didn’t you say you had a party tonight or something?”

Louis dug his phone out of the pocket of his sweats and glanced at the time.  “Oh shit, yeah I do.  Thanks.”  He launched himself out of bed and stripped off his t-shirt, going over to the closet to pick through his more form-fitting clothes.  He thought he felt Harry’s eyes on him for a moment, but when he turned back, his head was in his notebook again.

“Hic, haec, hoc.  Huius, huius, huius.  Huic, huic, huic…”

Louis sighed as he tugged down his sweats and stepped into a pair of jeans.  He was going to have to find out if Harry liked boys.   _ Fast, _ before the flirting got out of hand, or they accidentally saw each other’s dicks for the first time.  He had to know if he was off-limits.

*

“Of course he’s off-limits.  He’s your  _ roommate.” _

Louis rolled his eyes, and took another sip of beer.  “Liam.  Li-li.  Can I call you Li-li?  I don’t think that’s the rule.”

“It’s roomcest!”  Liam was drunk too, his hands gesturing wildly, suddenly coming to rest on his freshly-buzzed head.  He started to pet himself as he stared across the battered coffee table at Louis.  There were playing cards scattered about from where the group had been playing Kings.  Most of the other freshman who’d been invited to the party had filtered into the kitchen, where they were complaining about the amount of reading they had to do for English 110 and asking each other which instrument they’d played in high school.

“But my point  _ is,” _ Louis said, slamming down his cup,  _ “Lime, _ that I have to find out if he’s gay or bi so that I know if it’s even an issue.”

Liam sat back on his heels.  “That's fair, that's fair.”  He looked thoughtful for a moment, blinking slowly.  “Does he know you’re gay?”

Louis sat back against the side of the couch and burped.  “I meeeaan…” he whined, drawing his hand across his tummy and picking at the hem of his shirt, “I feel like I’ve been pretty obvious.  I showed him my feather boa.”

“Is that a euphemism?” Liam asked, snorting, and Louis leaned across the coffee table to smack him lightly upside the head.  He was glad that Liam was the sort of person who would tolerate affectionate physical violence from someone he’d only known for a week.

“I modeled it for him!” Louis said.  “And I was shirtless.”

Liam burst out laughing, his eyes crinkling at the edges and his nose spreading in a slightly endearing way.  “Unbelievable.  When was this?  The first day?  Is that how you greeted him when he walked into the room with his parents?”

Louis shook his head, giving Liam a withering look.  “Please.  It was completely natural and non-traumatic.”  Louis downed the rest of his beer and went on.  “He saw it in my closet while I was changing yesterday, so I slipped it on and did a twirl.  A casual twirl!”

“Well, how did he react?”

Louis groaned and slumped a little, feeling bloated from the beer and too full of nachos.  “He just nodded and went back to studying.  And he looked all stiff and uncomfortable...   _ Ugh,” _ he said, suddenly, tossing his empty cup across the room.  “I hope he’s not homophobic.”

“Maybe,” Liam said, leaning forward and pointing his finger at Louis’s nose, “he’s  _ attracted _ to you.  And he knows you’re off-limits.  Because of roomcest.”

“So,” Louis said, sighing and leaning his head back to look at the ceiling of the room, shadows starting to blur in his vision, “he’s either homophobic, or into me.”

_ “Yes,” _ Liam said, and smacked the table.

“Then that’s another reason I have to find out,” Louis concluded.  “Help me?”  He reached out his hands to Liam, who took them, squeezing hard.

“Of course,” he said.  “And if he’s a jerk, you can come live with me and Niall.  We’ll set up a nest of blankets for you on the floor.”

Louis grinned.  “Perfect.”

*

Harry walked warily into the dining hall, his full tray clutched tightly in his hands.  He had fifteen minutes to choke down a bagel before his Latin quiz.   _ Hic, haec, hoc…   _ He gulped.  All the demonstrative pronouns were beginning to swim around in his brain, untethered from their declension tables.   _ Is, illae, eius, earum…  Shit. _

He had to get an A in Latin.  He had to graduate summa cum laude and score over 170 on his LSATs and go to Harvard and follow in his mother’s footsteps and it really all depended on this first Latin quiz, because if he couldn’t memorize demonstrative pronouns, then how would he handle legal lingo?  How would he make it through all four years of college with perfect scores if he couldn’t ace a simple quiz?

_ How will I make it through another week of Louis undressing in front of me without dying? _

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.   _ Nope.  Stop. _  He took a deep breath, exhaled.  College was for studying.  Not for fantasizing about unfairly beautiful roommates.  This was the strategy he’d decided on during the summer, and it was what he would stick to.  While all of his other friends had been eagerly anticipating wild parties, new relationships and mature, adult hookups that their parents couldn’t walk in on, Harry had been trying to get a jump on his studies.  Every hope or dream he’d had about his future sex life had been washed away the night of his high school graduation.

He was fine with it.

Or had been fine with it, until he’d seen Louis Tomlinson.  Louis Tomlinson, who looked like a golden god in his soccer jersey, and who always came back from the shower with his towel slipping down around his waist.  Harry had caught glimpses of buttcheek.   _ Buttcheek!  Ugh, God… _  Louis Tomlinson, who liked to check his hair in the mirror every twenty seconds, blue eyes smoldering.  Louis Tomlinson, his randomly-assigned freshman roommate, whose continuing semi-nude presence seemed designed to mock Harry’s entire existence.

_ Hic, _ thought Harry, gritting his teeth as he moved toward one of the empty tables at the back.   _ Haec.  Hoc. _

“Harry!”

_ Of course. _  Harry’s stomach was a churning snarl of nerves, his palms already sweaty from thinking about the quiz, and Louis Tomlinson was calling him over.  Harry turned to look.  Louis was sitting with some other guy, one of the legions of new friends he seemed to have made instantaneously upon his arrival at college.  Harry managed to drag his big, uncooperative feet in their direction, his brain screaming at him.

_ Hi!  Hae!  Haec!  Horum!  Harum -- _

“Hey, Louis.”  Harry stood awkwardly beside the table for a second, clutching his tray tightly, before Louis gestured to one of the chairs.

“Wanna sit down?”

“Oh.  Sure.  I have a class in like ten minutes, though.”

“Your Latin quiz?”

Harry blinked, first bite of bagel on the way to his mouth, and stared across the table at Louis.  “How’d you know?”

Louis raised an eyebrow and smirked.  “I’m a mind reader.”

The other guy snickered to himself, and Harry hurriedly dropped his bagel and shut his mouth, almost knocking over his glass of milk.   _ He’s joking, _ he thought.  He cleared his throat, reached for a napkin, and tried not to seem so flustered.

“Just kidding,” Louis grinned.

“Ha, ha.”

Louis shrugged.  “You spent all weekend in the library and you look nervous as hell.  This is Liam, by the way.”

“Hey,” Harry said, with a little wave.  “I’m his roommate.”

Liam grinned.  “Oh, I know.”

Louis leaned forward then, digging his elbow into Liam’s side in the process and eliciting a small yelp.  “You’re going to ace the quiz,” he said, quickly.  “Don’t be nervous.”

Harry groaned and took a bite of bagel.  “I just really,  _ really _ need to do well…”  He was mumbling and chewing, slightly mortified when a wet crumb dropped out of his mouth and fell on his shirt.  Jesus, he used to be cool in high school.

Louis leaned forward and put a hand on his arm, staring into his eyes.  “You’ll do fine,” he said.  He squeezed, and his hand lingered a little before sliding off.  Harry felt his heart skip a beat.

There was a minute or so of silence as they all ate.  Harry started going over the declensions again in his head, and was only brought back to reality after he heard Louis whisper something to Liam in an undertone.  Then there was some scuffling under the table, and Harry felt a kick to his shin.

“Ow!”

“Sorry!” Louis yelped.  He gave Liam a meaningful glance and turned back to Harry.  “Thought it was the, uh, table leg.”

Harry nodded, looking back and forth between the two of them, wondering what their deal was.

“Oh wow...” Liam said suddenly.  “That… that girl over there is hot.  I like her boobs.”

Louis rolled his eyes.  “Don’t be so objectifying,  _ Liam.” _  He snorted.  “Straights.  Am I right?”

Harry didn’t quite know what to say.  He glanced at his watch and saw that he had three minutes to run across the quad and up a flight of stairs into his classroom in the Language and Philosophy building.  He stood up with his tray, bagel only half eaten.

“Um, gotta go,” he said.  “See you back at the room.  Nice to meet you, Liam!”

He felt his heart beating quickly in his chest as he burst out into the sunlight.  Even though it was irrelevant, it was still kind of nice knowing for sure that Louis wasn’t straight.   _ It really doesn’t matter, _ he reminded himself.   _ Hic, haec, hoc… _

*

“Well, that was a bust.”  Louis watched Harry’s retreating form longingly.  His shoulders were so  _ boss. _

“I told you it was the wrong moment,” Liam grumbled.  “He was barely paying any attention to what we were saying.”

“I know,” Louis sighed.  Poor Harry had looked so stressed, some purple puffiness under his eyes and his pale complexion on the gray, clammy side.  His hands had actually been shaking a little.  “I’m concerned for him.”

“You think he’s going to fail his quiz?”

Louis snorted.  “No.  He’s going to ace the quiz, but that won’t matter when he burns himself out by midterm.  I literally haven’t observed him having fun  _ once _ since move-in day.”  Louis ticked off the evidence on his fingers.  “He hasn’t met anyone, he hasn’t watched so much as an episode of TV on his laptop…  All he does is listen to music and study.”  He pouted.  “Not even a surreptitious wank after he thinks I’m asleep.”

“Oh my god, Louis.  Who does that?  Is that something I have to discuss with Niall?”  Liam looked slightly panicked, and thoroughly grossed out.

Louis shrugged.  “At least then it’s contained to a bed instead of splattered all over the communal shower stalls.”  He made a wistful little noise and stared off into the distance, chin in his hand.  “And I would get to  _ hear.” _

“Dude, you’re a pervert.”

Louis paid no attention to this assessment, and suddenly clapped his hands together.  “A party!”

“Hmm?”

“Yes,” Louis nodded.  “I’ll throw a room party.  He spends all his time in the room, studying.  Friday night, library’s closed, he doesn’t know anyone else on campus...  He’ll be forced to recreate!”

Liam took a swig of his soda and stood up, checking the time.  “Or you could stop harassing him, just let him do his thing.  Some people just aren’t that sociable.”  Liam shrugged, adjusting his messenger bag over his shoulder.  “He seems fine with it.”

_ “That _ seemed fine to you?” Louis scoffed.  “He looked like he was about to cry.”

“Whatever, as long as we get pizza and video games, I’m in.”

*

When Harry came back from dinner on Friday night, he found the door to his room open and a bright-faced kid with a mop of dyed blond hair going through all the music on his computer.

“Um…”

“Musicals and Carole King.  Quite a collection.”

“Excuse me --”

Louis brushed past Harry, shirtless again and wearing bum-hugging sweatpants that left little to the imagination.  He plunked himself down in the blond kid’s lap, adjusting his fringe and sitting up in a cute, pert way that made Harry’s throat go dry.  “Which musicals?  Does he have Grease?”

“Looks like… both the original Broadway cast and the movie soundtrack.”

Louis clapped in delight and swung his legs around so that he was facing Harry.  Blondie’s arm was slung casually around his bare waist.  Harry tried not to look.  He also tried not to notice the adorable grandpa slippers Louis had on, or how cute Louis’s little feet looked swinging a couple inches off the floor.

“Harold Guinevere Styles,” Louis said grandly, “you are a man after my own heart.”

Harry felt a weird dart of pain through his chest.  It dulled to an ache and spread upward until he was blushing fiercely, trying to muster up some semblance of indignation.

“Could you -- um, could you please stop going through my computer?  It’s, like…  Not to be rude, but.  It’s, um.  Guinevere’s not my middle name, you know.”

Louis shook his head and let a fond little smile flit across his thin lips.  Then he licked them, and Harry’s world seemed to tilt off its axis.  “To be fair,” he said.  “You  _ did _ leave your computer on and un-password protected, and your iTunes just happened to be open.  But we didn’t look at anything else, swear!”  He crossed his heart and batted his eyelashes.

“Well,” Harry swallowed hard, eyebrows knitting as he tried to look serious.  “I suppose I forgive you, then.”

“Perfect!” grinned Louis.  “Because we need your help.”  He got up and tugged Blondie off Harry’s desk chair, motioning for Harry to sit.

Harry did so, cautiously.  “My help?  With what?”  He didn’t like the sense of apprehension and unease growing in his chest.

“We need you to DJ our Mario Kart party.  That we’re having in this room.  In...”  Louis dug his cell phone out of his pocket and squinted at it.  “Three minutes.”

_ “What?” _  Harry spluttered, this time actually indignant.  He flung his arms out, heart hammering in his chest, and sent a mug of pre-sharpened Ticonderogas scattering.  “You’re throwing a party in our room and  _ you didn’t even tell me? _  Louis, I have to  _ study.” _

He felt like his entire body was twisting up with nerves and annoyance.   _ He can’t just…  He can’t.   _ His plans for avoiding all social contact were being thrown out of whack, just when he was finally getting in a study rhythm.  He huffed and shook his head, bending down to pick up the pencils that had fallen under the desk.  Desperately, he tried to ignore the part of him that was whispering,  _ at least this time he wants to actually hang out with you.  Instead of running off across campus to who-knows-where. _

“Oh, lighten up.”  Louis crossed his arms, which accentuated his biceps and did nothing but confuse Harry’s Latin-addled brain.  “You know, speaking as your roommate, I have a roommate-ly concern for your well-being.”

Harry rolled his eyes and flipped his hair out of his face.  “A roommate-ly concern.”

“Yes,” Louis said, ignoring the skeptical jut of Harry’s jaw.  “I won’t have you die a hermit in this dorm room.  Have you even made any friends on campus?  Look, like, this is Niall.  Say hello to Niall.”

Harry tried to keep from groaning, and waved as politely as he could.  “Hello, Niall.  I’m Harry.”

“Hey, man.”  Niall smiled and casually reached over to give Harry a high five, as if he wasn’t a stranger who had just been caught snooping through Harry’s iTunes library.

Harry crossed his arms, sighing out through his nose.  Louis was already hooking up the GameCube and waving the Double Dash cartridge around.  “Once Liam gets here with his controllers, we can play foursies!”

“Foursies?” Harry asked, skeptically.  “Is that what they call it?”

“Mm-hmm,” Louis said, tongue just parting his lips as he bent over to adjust a cable.  “Everyone  _ I  _ know.”  His tiny TV was squished between their two desks, sitting on an overturned plastic milk crate.  It hadn’t seen much use so far, and Harry fought down a familiar warm sort of feeling as he watched Niall and Louis arrange pillows and a bean bag chair in front of it.   _ Friendship.  That’s the friendship feeling. _

He shook his head, and turned up the Grease soundtrack.  If he was DJing, he was DJing right.

Liam arrived about five minutes later with pizza and two more controllers.  (Louis still hadn’t put on a shirt, and Harry was losing hope that he would ever be fully clothed again.)  They settled onto the floor and chose up teams, Niall and Harry against Louis and Liam.

“I like to be in front,” Liam declared loudly, which set Louis off.  He lifted the back of his hand up prettily, disguising his smile and not quite containing his giggles.  Harry accidentally caught his eye, and found himself snickering.

“That’s okay, baby,” Louis said, quickly composing himself and grabbing a controller.  “I’m versatile.”

Harry’s stomach did flip-flops, and he was glad when Niall claimed driving duties.

After the first few races, Louis started singing along to “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee.”  His burnished, perfect arm kept grazing Harry’s -- he’d somehow managed to scoot the bean bag chair closer to Harry’s floor pillow.  Harry felt thrills up and down his spine as he tried to drop his banana peels in strategic spots.

Then he got a little brave, clearing his throat and humming along once the song shifted to “We Go Together.”  He turned his head to sneak a glance at Louis.  He was caught by blinding blue eyes and a soft smile, much more tentative than Louis’s normal bright grin.

“Dip da-dip da-dip doo-wop da doo-bee doo,” Louis sang softly, his voice light and pleasantly raspy at the edges.  Harry couldn’t breathe.  “Our names are  _ siiiigned _ boogedy boogedy boogedy boogedy shooby doo-wop she-bop…”

Harry sang back.  “Chang  _ chaaaang _ changitty chang sha-bop --”

“High poetry, Harold!  Can you imagine the world if these lyrics had never been written?  We’d all be living in shit.”

Harry felt a squawky laugh punch out of his chest, and he clapped his hands to his face, trying to hide his amusement.  He’d already given himself away, though.  He shook his head in mock disapproval, gaze accidentally dropping to Louis’s chest as Niall and Liam finished the race without the benefit of their partners’ attention.  He wanted so badly to touch Louis’s skin.  Just to feel it… to see if it was as soft as it looked.

_ Stop. _

He snapped himself out of it and hurriedly swapped spots with Niall for the next race, insisting on taking over the driver’s seat and claiming that he didn’t want the cords to get too tangled.

Later, when Niall and Liam were gone and Louis had cranked open the windows to get rid of the greasy pizza smell, Harry stretched out on his bed.  The lights flicked off, and he could hear Louis rustling on the other side of the room.  Suddenly they seemed even closer than usual.  Harry wondered if they both reached out their hands, whether their fingertips would brush.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Louis asked.  His voice wasn’t brash, like it had been for most of the night.

Harry sucked in a long breath.  “No, I guess… Niall and Liam are nice.  When you said the word ‘party,’ I thought you meant, like --”

“Nah,” Louis said.  “I knew you needed something chill.  We’ll warm you up, maybe build up to one of the dorm mixers by midterm.”  He was teasing, but his tone was gentle.

There was a beat of silence, and then Harry said, “Thanks.”  It was little more than a whisper, but he knew Louis was listening.  “I had…  Like, right before graduation, I had a sort of shitty friendship experience.  In case you were wondering why --”  He waved his hands around in the dark, trying to come up with more words.  The whole night, he’d been simultaneously enjoying himself and winding himself up tighter and tighter, each Louis interaction making his brain short out.

“You don’t need to explain, Harry,” Louis said.  “But I am always here for you if you want to talk.”

Harry blushed.  He concentrated on breathing in and out, slowly.  “Because of your roommate-ly concern?” he asked.

“Yep.  Exactly.”

Harry could hear Louis sliding his sweatpants off under his covers, and had to mentally force his own hands to remain where they were at his sides.  His dick was throbbing, and he wondered when he had gotten hard.  He couldn’t wank, obviously.   _ Uncouth, uncouth, very uncouth. _  Nor could he sneak down the brightly-lit hall to the bathrooms with a massive erection.

Slowly, Harry closed his eyes and forced himself to fall asleep, knowing that he was going to wake up in the morning with a dried mess in his boxers.

_ Stupid goddamn penis. _

*

Friday Mario Kart became a standing thing, and Louis thought that by the third week, Harry had actually begun to look forward to it.  He slowly warmed to Liam and Niall, and was more willing to have casual chats with Louis, even when he was studying.  The more Louis talked to Harry, the more he found himself wanting to really open up to him.  There was something about him -- something warm, and when he smiled, and his dimples popped…  Louis just felt it.  He felt it all through his body, an excited, warm, wriggly feeling.  Like a puppy.

_ Like puppy love. _

And it made Louis ache to get home to him.

“Hey, big man,” he said, flopping down onto the bean bag chair after a particularly difficult Tuesday evening lecture.

Harry immediately took his earbuds out and turned around.  The tips of his ears were pink, as per usual when Louis broke out that particular nickname.  But his expression became one of concern when he met Louis’s eyes.

_ Ugh,  _ Louis thought.   _ I probably look like shit.  Stupid physics. _

“You okay?” Harry asked.  “Your voice is all…”  He made a complicated swooping gesture with his hands that Louis couldn’t interpret.  “How’d class go?”

Louis sighed.  He raised his eyebrows dramatically, staring into the middle distance and intoning.  “I do not have a scientific brain.  I will not pass this class.  Please prepare my body for burial when my mother finds out.”

“Oh…”  Harry jumped out of his chair and took two steps toward him, looking awkward almost immediately, as if he had moved instinctively and wasn’t sure what he had intended to do once he was standing over the bean bag.  But Louis held out his arms, and Harry knelt down to hug him with a soft, barely audible noise of relief.

“Finally, roommate cuddles.”

Harry chuckled deep in his throat, and Louis felt the reverberations through his whole body.  He forced down a shiver.  “Are they better than other kinds?”

Louis nodded into Harry’s neck.  It was a lovely, delicate moment, and as he breathed in Harry’s scent, his limbs felt weak.  He couldn’t have spoken above a whisper if he’d tried.  “Roommate cuddles have been praised in verse since the dawn of literature, Harold.  I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

He felt rather than saw Harry smile.  Suddenly the big hands that he’d spent weeks surreptitiously fantasizing about were rubbing his back.  He almost made an embarrassing noise, had to stop it in his throat, had to stop himself from reacting at all.  He just felt Harry’s touch and tried to keep breathing.

Finally Harry released him, sitting back cross-legged on the floor and quickly drawing a pillow onto his lap.

“Thank you,” Louis said, quietly.  The undefined ache in his body seemed to crystallize, the moment Harry wasn’t touching him.   _ Touch…   _ He wanted to touch Harry again.  So badly.  Wanted him back in his arms, wanted to breathe him in.

But he shrugged, trying not to give anything away.  “It’s not really a big deal.  I got called on,” he rolled his eyes, “and I blanked.  And then the professor accused me of not doing the reading.”

Harry’s mouth fell open.  “But I saw you doing it!”

Louis let out a short, breathless laugh.  “You did?”

He pursed his lips together tight so that he wouldn’t smile when Harry blushed again, looking down to finger the edge of the pillow.  “I mean, I noticed.  Yesterday.  Or, at some point, that you had your Physics textbook out.  I guess.”

Louis had been reading it in nothing but boxer briefs, stretched out on the bed, hoping that Harry would glance over from his desk at some point and get a good look at his ass.  He smirked.   “I was only skimming it,” he admitted.  “But still.”

“Want to watch a movie?” Harry asked, suddenly.  He threw the pillow away and went to get his laptop.  “I’ve got The Sound of Music.  That always cheers me up.”

“Aww, Harold,” Louis teased.  “You want to take care of me.”

Harry rolled his eyes and dragged Louis by his wrist up into his bed.  His navy blue duvet was nice and warm, and Louis deliberately snuggled close to Harry’s side as Harry fast-forwarded through the boring opening shots of the Austrian alps.

“Just roommate-ly concern,” Harry whispered, as they watched Julie Andrews open her arms and twirl.

*

One roommate cuddle turned into frequent roommate cuddles, which turned into long conversations and sharing earbuds, and occasionally falling asleep on top of each other on the big red couches in the library.  Harry still shied away from any topic that might reveal anything about his sexuality, and Louis stopped trying to find out.  No matter what, it was obvious to Louis that Harry was uncomfortable -- whether with sex in general, his own identity, or something else along those lines.

So Louis stopped trying to pry, but couldn’t help wondering.   _ He could be sex repulsed, _ he mused, gazing intently at the screen of his phone as he trudged across campus one brisk, cloudy afternoon.  Soccer practice had been canceled less than ten minutes in because one of the coach’s kids had broken an arm, so Louis was already half-warmed up and glowing with sweat as he scrolled through the Wikipedia entry on asexuality, and some linked topics on AVENwiki.   _ Or he could just be indifferent to sex…  Or he might not be ace at all.  Maybe he’s just a really polite straight guy. _

Louis almost snorted at the thought.  Harry  _ would _ be that straight guy who’d let you have a crush on him for months because he was too polite to say anything.

_ Whatever the case, _ Louis thought, pocketing his phone as he marched up the echoing dorm stairwell to the third floor,  _ I’m his good friend, and I’ll be there to support him if he ever wants to talk about it. _

“Also I promise not to stare at his thighs from now on,” he muttered, crossing his heart.

It was about three seconds after Louis had pledged to be a responsible, caring, non-creepy friend to Harry, and not to objectify his beautiful body anymore, that he walked in on him masturbating.

Harry’s back was to him.  He was sitting at his desk, shirtless, with his earbuds in and a video playing on his laptop.  The first thing Louis fully registered was the soft patch of skin between Harry’s shoulderblades -- pale, but with a pink flush creeping upward to the tensing, shifting muscles in his broad shoulders.  His right arm was in his lap, pumping.  Little sounds of pleasure were being punched out of his throat: rhythmic, needy  _ uh, uh, uh _ s that made Louis go rigid.

The door swung closed.  Louis’s soccer bag slipped to the ground with a soft thump, and Harry turned around, earbuds falling out of place.

“Shit,” Louis said, quickly, his eyes too wide and his limbs unable to function.  “Shit, God, I am so sorry.”

“Um, practice?” Harry asked.  His voice was rough, even lower than normal, and Louis felt his insides disintegrate.  He was getting a boner in his shorts.  He couldn’t stop it.  Not when the smell of sex was in the room, and Harry looked like  _ that. _

Harry was using both hands to cover his erection, and they barely did the job.  It meant that the video was still playing on his laptop.  Louis couldn’t help but notice the title above the little Pornhub window: HOT AMATEUR TWINKS FUCKING.

“Called off,” Louis managed to rasp, after what seemed like an eternity.  And then, because he had never learned not to say the very first thing that came to his mind in times of stress, “So when I’m at practice,  _ that’s _ when you do all your wanking?  I was wondering.”

“Yeah, um…”  Harry looked slightly panicked.  “Could you…?”

“Harry, I would gladly step out into the hall, but…”

Now it was Louis who was starting to panic.  A couple of girls from the other end of the floor had been coming up right behind him on the stairs, and were currently having a loud discussion with the R.A. directly outside their door.  Louis glanced down at the absolute tent in his loose-fitting soccer shorts.  He begged Harry with his eyes, not knowing what to say.

Harry’s mouth dropped open slightly.  He drew in a sharp breath, and stared.  “Oh,” he whispered.

“I'm sorry,” Louis said, the words coming out too quickly.  “It just happened, I’m…”

Harry looked like he couldn’t breathe.  His gaze was fixed on the front of Louis’s shorts.

“Is this weird?” Louis asked.  He felt hot under the intensity of Harry’s stare, pinned down, and all it was doing was making his dick fill up faster.

Harry slowly shook his head.  “No, it’s, um…  I mean, it’s natural…  a natural response, right?”

“Yeah,” Louis said, balling both his hands into fists, “because you’re a fucking dreamboat and you’re naked and hard and in my room.  Where my bed is.”

That surprised a laugh out of Harry.  He brought a hand up to capture the sound, and exposed the top half of his cock.  It was standing up so stiff it was almost purple, foreskin stretched tightly around the leaking head.  Louis almost moaned.

“Dreamboat?” Harry asked.  “Really?”

Louis swallowed around a lump of nerves, but he was all in now.  “I've had a crush on you since the first time I saw you.”

He raised his shoulders in a half-shrug and then dropped them, his heart in his throat and his hard-on throbbing.  He searched Harry’s face.

“Well then,” he said, after a few seconds of stunned silence.  “I’m just gonna throw on a big sweater and--”

_ “Shit,  _ Louis.”

Harry leapt up and twisted his waist, maneuvering around the end of his bed as he held his arms out and fell into Louis’s chest.  He almost toppled them over into a big, overenthusiastic pile of partly-naked boy.  But Louis’s arms flexed, and he planted his feet firmly.  Before he knew it, Harry’s mouth was on his.  The kiss was hot, insistent, and it felt like Harry didn’t know what he was doing.  Louis didn’t care.  They were two orbiting stars who had just given into gravity and collided.

_ Supernova, _ Louis thought, wildly.  He brought his hands to Harry’s waist, squeezing the soft spots just above his boxer line.  A fresh wave of arousal hit him like an electric jolt.

“You’re all…” Harry breathed, in between rough, fevered kisses, “...all I can ever… all I can  _ think _ about.”

Louis groaned, and pushed his body fully into Harry’s.  He could feel the heat of his skin through the thin layer of workout clothes, the press of his cock.

“...you fuck up my studying…”

Louis giggled, and it came out like a gasp.

“...so beautiful…”

Suddenly Louis felt his t-shirt being lifted up, and he heard Harry whimper at the sight of his bare chest as it came off.  He buried his face in Louis’s neck, tracing lips over his collarbone and making his abs flinch a little as his hands began to feel the soft curves around Louis’s tummy.  Louis couldn’t help the rush of conceited pleasure he got from that.

Then Harry’s rigid cock was dancing across his stomach, leaving a wet trail as it bobbed out of his boxers.  Louis wasted no time tugging them down his thighs, freeing Harry’s balls and leaving him totally naked.  Harry was shuddering.  Louis glanced up and saw his eyes closed, his mouth screwed up in concentration.

“Louis…” Harry whispered.  His voice sounded almost pleading.

“I want to keep kissing you,” Louis said, gently.  He reached up to touch the hot skin at the back of Harry’s neck, thumb wandering over to caress his jaw.  “Harry, please.”  Harry let out a short, staccato sigh and went where Louis guided him.

He could feel Harry vibrating in his arms as they kissed again.  But this time it was different.  There was less passion, somehow.  It felt almost awkward…   _ Why? _  Harry was tense, his big hands gripping Louis’s arms tightly, and his lips were barely moving.  It was as though he were concentrating on something else entirely.

Louis was about to draw back and ask Harry if he was okay when he felt Harry’s cock twitch.  Harry broke the kiss and made a pained, whimpering noise, and Louis looked down just in time to see hot, white streaks of come land on his stomach, pumping out of Harry’s wildly spasming dick.

There was silence for a moment.  Louis almost started to laugh, but managed to hold it in.  He thought maybe Harry saw it though, saw the edges of his eyes begin to crinkle and his lips tighten up to fight back the chuckle.  Harry flinched, and backed away.

“I’m sorry, Louis, I’m sorry,” he breathed.  “ ‘M so sorry, um...  I’ll get you some Kleenex.”

In the moment before Harry turned, Louis saw that there were tears in his eyes.  His face was crumpling, and his hands were shaking.  He shook his head once, getting loose curls out of his eyes, and Louis heard a sniff.

_ What the hell? _

He reached out and put a hand on Harry’s elbow.  “Wait a sec,” he said.  Harry didn’t turn around, so Louis snuck around the other side of him.  He was so confused by Harry’s reaction, like  _ what, does he think I’m going to yell at him because he came right away? _  Everything had happened so fast, and Louis felt like he couldn’t wrap his head around why Harry was suddenly holding back tears.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he said.  “Happens all the time.”  It felt weirdly forced, like he was resorting to cliches.  “I mean, you were already close, right?  Got a head start on me...”  He gestured toward the laptop where the porn was still playing, and tinny, exaggerated pleasure noises were still coming out of Harry’s abandoned earbuds.

“Right,” Harry said, softly.  His face was downturned.  He wouldn’t look Louis in the eye.  “Yeah.”

There was another moment of awkward silence while Louis tried to suss out the situation.  He felt guilt creeping into his gut, a vague, sick feeling that was starting to solidify into something heavy.  He knew Harry had issues with sex.  They’d obviously ended up in a place that made Harry uncomfortable, and Louis didn’t know how to handle it.  He didn’t know what to say.

When he looked up again, Harry was holding a tissue out.  He’d tucked himself back into his boxer briefs, and he looked completely dejected.

“You’re soft,” he whispered.

He was.  Louis had gone soft the minute Harry had gone teary.

“It doesn’t matter, baby,” Louis said.  He took the tissue and started to wipe himself up.  “Are you okay?”

Harry nodded, but he clearly wasn’t.  He stared down at the flat front of Louis’s soccer shorts and frowned.  Louis could tell that he was actively trying to hold it together, and was only half succeeding.

“Come on, let’s have a talk.”

Louis tossed the tissue and pulled Harry over to his bed, tucking them both under the duvet.  The porn had stopped, and it had started to storm outside.  Little droplets struck the windows, and Louis could see the leaves on the trees quivering as rain hit them.

He kissed Harry’s hair.  “So you like me,” he said.

He felt Harry nod.  His own heart was racing, skipping ahead just like his mind was skipping ahead in the conversation.   _ We like each other.  Boyfriends.  I want to be boyfriends. _

“And I like you…”  Louis wrapped a curl around his finger, tugged at it teasingly for a moment, and then dug his fingers in deeper to massage Harry’s scalp.  “A  _ lot.” _

Louis waited for any sort of reaction, but Harry had buried his face in Louis’s chest and wasn’t letting his body relax.  He couldn’t tell what Harry was thinking.  “We probably jumped the gun a little, here,” he said, “but I want you to know that I can take it slow.  I would  _ want  _ to take it slow, if… if you were my boyfriend.”

Harry whipped his head up, a sneering sort of frown on his face.  “Are you serious?” he asked.

Louis felt his heart drop into his stomach.  Harry was -- he sounded  _ hostile. _  Almost mocking, like it was not only unthinkable but actually embarrassing that Louis would have brought up the subject of boyfriends.  He tried to search Harry’s expression for clues as to how to proceed, but found none.  Louis cleared his throat, and tucked Harry’s head back into the crook of his neck.  “If you don’t want to,” he said, trying to keep his voice from wavering, “that’s fine.  We’re still friends, Harry.  I was just asking.”  He was staring hard at the trees now.  The sky was darker, and his chest felt achey.  He felt a little in shock from the rejection.

“I mean, we don’t have to date just because we made out.”  Harry’s voice sounded sullen and defensive, and Louis wondered where the hell he had gone wrong.

“True.”  He could feel his own body stiffening up, uncomfortable with the intimate position they were in.   _ Harry doesn’t trust me.  He doesn’t trust me… _  The hurt feeling was getting out of hand, rising up from his chest into his throat and warring with the guilt he still felt.  He tried to tell himself that Harry was perfectly free to do whatever, and that Louis had made him uncomfortable, somehow misread the signs and pressured Harry to do more than he wanted.  Not exactly good boyfriend behavior.

_ I should have left the room.  I should have put my hands over my crotch and just left. _

Louis felt hurt and in the wrong, and he watched the rain until Harry fell asleep.

*

Harry woke up with a sick feeling in his stomach.  It was somehow the middle of the night; he’d been asleep for hours, and he was alone in his bed.  Louis was gone.

_ To exactly no one’s surprise, _ he thought.  He sat up groggily, rubbing his eyes as he looked over at Louis’s bed.  A pale square of moonlight was coming through the window, illuminating empty, rumpled sheets.

A little bit of sleep hadn’t erased the humiliation.  It hadn’t been a dream.  He really had made a total fool of himself.   _ Again. _  Harry let a tear fall down his nose, then flopped back onto the bed, and curled himself up into the fetal position.   _ He’s probably over at Liam and Niall’s, filling them in.   _ He sniffed, and swiped at the itchy trail the tear had left.   _ They’re fucking laughing at me right now. _

It was everything he had wanted to avoid.  Harry wiped tears away with the back of his hand and stubbornly buried his head in the pillow.  He was going to sleep again.  He would sleep it off, and then he and Louis would politely avoid each other for a while, and hopefully never talk about it again.

If they really could still be friends, it would be a step up from the last time.

*

Wednesday dawned bright, and the quickly drying damp patches on the sidewalks were the only sign of the storm that had passed.  Harry got up early and fled the room, taking all of his books and his earbuds with him.  He decided to camp out at the library while he wasn’t in class.  If he could stay away long enough, he could come back to the room and just fall asleep without disturbing Louis.

He picked a spot on the third floor, behind the rolling stacks, and barely saw anyone else all day.  His phone was muted.  Harry studied.  His Intro to Classics section was delving into various English translations of Catullus, and he had been assigned Carmen 32, translated by Chia-Hsien Lin.  When he read it, his throat got so thick it was actually hard to swallow.

 

_ I beg you, my sweet, my Ipsitilla, _

_ my darling, my sophisticated beauty, _

_ summon me to a midday assignation; _

_ and, if you're willing, do me one big favor: _

_ don't let another client shoot the door bolt, _

_ and don't decide to suddenly go cruising, _

_ but stay at home & get yourself all ready _

_ for nine - yes, nine - successive copulations! _

_ Honestly, if you want it, give the order: _

_ I've eaten, and I'm sated, supinated! _

_ My prick is poking through my cloak and tunic. _

 

“Nine successive copulations,” he muttered, bitterly, his voice hoarse.  His whole body felt hollow.  Any other day, he would have wanted to read the poem aloud to Louis, to hear him laugh.  But now his mouth felt gritty, his stomach growling weakly as he tried to ignore his own feelings and write about how the vowel sounds in the last line suggested the  _ “oohs _ and  _ ohs _ of a passionate interlude.”

It just seemed like every other human in history got to have pleasurable, lighthearted sex, even dead Romans.  Harry’s life was an utter shambles.   _ First of all, _ he gritted his teeth as he forced himself to confront the words.   _ Premature ejaculation. _  A fucking nightmare, even though all the helpful-sounding articles in his periodic Google searches tried to convince him that it was a common problem with a variety of options for treatment.  They were written for straight people, of course.  At least if he were straight, he might have the chance of one day enjoying five to ten seconds of thrusting inside a partner before coming.   _ Fingering open takes forever, _ he reminded himself.  And the times he had done it to himself had felt so good that there was just no way anal sex could work for him, in either position.

Then there was Louis.  Beautiful Louis, perfectly hot, so sexy, so open and bright and funny…   _ I’m ruining everything for him, too. _  Harry wasn’t an idiot; he could tell Louis had been disappointed.   _ And he’d continue being disappointed.  Every single time... _

“I just… literally can’t give him anything.”  Harry whispered these words out loud, and it felt like he had punched himself right in the gut.  Self-loathing washed over him.  He couldn’t even pretend that he didn’t get a little twisted pleasure out of feeling so pathetic; it was all he had.  Like how the loser of a board game is allowed to whine.

He sat and stared at the cover of his Classics textbook.

Later, when he had forced himself to finish all the reading for his Thursday classes, Harry took his earbuds out and stretched.  The sun was going down.  He didn’t want to go to the dining hall, afraid he might run into Louis.  In the end, he bought junk food from one of the vending machines in the library’s lobby and ate it outside on a secluded bench.  His ass ached from sitting down all day, and his mind was numb.  He just wanted to go back to his room.

So he gave in.

He almost didn’t expect to see Louis, but there he was, working with his head down over his desk and fully clothed for once.  Despite his emotional and physical exhaustion, Harry’s skin prickled.  A small wave of panic zipped up his spine as he set his bag down and started to unpack all of his books.  Louis didn’t look up, but Harry could see that the muscles in his arms were clenched, and he’d stopped actively doing the Physics homework he had open in front of him.

He was just staring at it.

“Hey,” Harry said.

“Hey,” Louis answered.

They both waited for the other one to say something.  When nothing happened, Harry sighed softly and peeled off his shirt.  He slipped into bed, only taking off his jeans and socks when he was under the covers.

“Can you turn off the overhead light, please?” he asked.  He pitched his voice politely, forcing it not to waver.

“Sure.”

He heard Louis’s bare feet padding to the light switch, and felt a small amount of relief wash over him when the oppressive brightness was flipped off.  He settled onto his side, comforted a bit by the warm glow of Louis’s desk lamp.

_ Well, good, _ Harry thought.   _ Now I know how it’s going to be. _  He couldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt, but he knew he’d essentially brought it on himself, first by not being able to control his own body and then by rejecting Louis without explanation.  But it’s not like he could have done anything differently…

Harry wondered how he’d feel when Louis started bringing other guys back to the room to hook up, and barely stopped himself from crying again.  Then he pretended to be asleep until he actually was.


	2. Chapter 2

It was Friday, and Harry was going to play Mario Kart, god dammit.  Louis was prepared to tie him to the bean bag chair if that was what it took.  They were going to talk, and they were going to have _fun,_ and they were going to get over almost becoming boyfriends.

 _We could have been great ones,_ Louis thought, his chest full of regret mixed with a sort of loneliness that felt weird and new.   _If I hadn’t been such an embarrassing jerk._

He shook his head and got out the controllers, unwinding the cables and rearranging the room a bit to create the seating area in front of the TV.  Harry was going to come home soon, and he was not going to have a choice.  Louis had even cleaned up all of the little piles of dirty clothes that tended to form on his side of the room, just in case that was the real reason Harry was avoiding him.

Liam arrived first, and plopped himself down.  “Gonna do some time trials,” he said.  He wiggled his fingers and flexed his wrists, as if he was a sprinter stretching before a race.  Louis grinned faintly and shook his head, still trying to stuff down all the hard, self-recriminating feelings that had consumed him for most of the week.

Harry had abandoned the room to him and Louis had mostly just moped around in it, being even more of a slob than usual.  He’d tried to distract himself with movies and snacks and even studying, once in a while, but his head felt like it had cotton wrapped around it.  Nothing seemed to make sense.  And always, there was the pit of guilt and sadness in his stomach.

Those feelings were joined by nerves, the closer it got to the time Harry usually came home.  Louis’s skin felt wired, his senses on alert.   _He’ll have to act normal around Niall and Liam, at least._  Louis hoped that after an initial ice-breaking period, they could get back on friendly terms again.

 _No, you hope he’s suddenly going to profess his undying fucking love for you, you complete embarrassment._  Louis almost groaned as he sat down on one of the pillows to watch Liam’s time trial.   _Who does that?  Who goes to college and immediately falls in love with the first person they’re semi-naked around?  Pathetic!_

Louis knew he had always been monogamously inclined (or as some of his high school friends would have put it, “obsessed with soulmates”), but this seemed ridiculous, even for him.   _He could smell it on me, probably.  Could not get away fast enough…_

Just then the door banged open, and Harry marched in, Niall behind him.  There was a stormy look on Harry’s face that Louis immediately recognized.  Niall was chattering away, either not having noticed Harry’s closed-off body language or maybe trying to get him to loosen up with some random funny story.

“So,” Louis said, interrupting Niall and thrusting a controller at Harry.  “Mario Kart.”

Harry met his eyes for an instant, and Louis almost quailed.  They were accusatory, and full of pain.  Then he schooled his expression and plopped down on the other side of Liam, picking up a different controller from the floor.  He didn't bother to take off his parka or shoes, and Louis wondered if he was just waiting until he could figure out a polite way to leave.  Louis bit his lip and turned away, his shoulders almost shaking with the confused intensity of his feelings.  Niall plucked the controller out of his hand and dragged Louis down to the floor, putting an arm around him.

“Be my partner, please,” he demanded.

“Only if you call me ‘O Wise One’ for the duration of the night and defer to all of my tactical decision-making,” Louis said.

Niall barked out a huge laugh, and Louis glanced over to see a smile on Liam’s face.  Harry was just staring sullenly at the TV, like he hadn’t heard.  Louis felt almost desperate, wanting to make some sort of joke that would get a reaction from Harry.  Anything, even a hint of amusement.  Just to prove that things could be normal again.

“Do you wanna be in front?” Niall asked, as Liam finished the final few turns of his time trial.  “Or would you rather… get behind and push me along?”

Topping and bottoming jokes had become standard since that first night, and Louis forced out a laugh.

Just then, Liam finished his time trial, setting a new personal best.

“Yes!!” he cried, punching his fists in the air.  “Under two minutes!”

Louis’s brain automatically identified the opportunity for another sex-based joke that was calculated to make fun of Liam, and it flew out of his mouth, loud and obnoxious, before he could think about it.  “Woah, Big Payno!  Not an endurance man, huh?”

The words hung in the air a moment.  Then Niall squeezed his eyes shut and doubled over, clutching his gut and laughing so hard that he was almost wheezing.  Liam rolled his eyes and pretended like he was going to throw his controller at Louis.  Louis let out a real laugh at that, pleased and a little proud that he had successfully entertained his friends.

Then he heard a bang as Harry tripped over his own desk chair, stumbling and almost falling.  Louis saw tears spilling down his cheeks before he turned his head away.  He was flailing a little, limbs uncoordinated as he tried to rub his shin and walk at the same time, desperate to get out of the room.  He finally made it to the door and flung it open, throwing himself through it.

“What the hell?” asked Liam, brows furrowing.

 _Oh, fuck,_ Louis thought, heart sinking.   _Oh God._

Niall lifted his face out of his lap, still hiccuping little laughs.  “Huh?”  He looked around, coming down from his laughter high.  “Where’d Harry go?”

“Maybe he had a bathroom emergency,” Liam said.  Niall started to snicker again.

Louis dumped his controller and sprang to his feet, not wasting time by giving any explanation before he followed Harry out the door.  As he darted into the hallway, he looked left and right, trying to figure out which way Harry had gone.  Louis ran to the lounge first, but there were a few people studying in there, and one girl frowning as she tried to flick through TV channels with the dying remote.  Then he sprinted down the stairs and outside, banging his hip into the panic bar so hard it hurt.

“Harry?” he yelled.

Their dorm was at the edge of campus, next to an arboretum with hiking trails and clearings that the students used for picnics.  Louis ran out into the night, noticing for the first time that he was barefoot, and without a coat, and that it was cold and damp.  He almost growled in frustration, running up a dark path into the trees.  He could still see by the orange glow of the sodium-vapor security lights that were always on at night near the dorm.  The air felt almost wet, hazy.  Louis shivered.

Then, rounding a corner, he saw a person-sized lump sitting on a log.  He stopped to catch his breath, recognizing the shape of Harry’s boss shoulders immediately.

“Harry,” he croaked, his voice breaking.

Harry’s head snapped up, and Louis could barely see his eyes traveling over him in the gloom, taking him in.  Then he hunched over further, toes turned in.  “Just leave me alone.”

“I’m sorry,” Louis said, wanting to get it out there immediately.  “I’m so sorry, Harry, I wasn’t thinking.”

Harry raised his head again.  “Are you fucking kidding me?”  He had his arms wrapped around himself tight, as if he were trying to physically hold himself together, trying to keep his guts from spilling out as he yelled.  “You… you told our friends what -- what happened…”  His voice was strangled, and so full of anguish.  Louis felt the old toxic mixture of confusion and anxiety hit him again, almost making him sick.   _How did I hurt him like this?  How could I have?  Oh fuck..._

“What?  Harry --”

“And then you made fun of me in -- in _front_ of them…  Niall was laughing at me…  Now everyone will know!  Everyone will --”  Harry broke down into sobs.  He sounded like a little kid overreacting to being teased, and Louis could tell that he knew how he sounded and was further embarrassed by it.

“God, Harry, _no.”_  Louis took a tentative step toward Harry, his hand out beseechingly.  He wanted to hold him so badly, wrap him up and press gentle kisses to all of the sore spots in his psyche.  “I didn’t tell them anything.  I mean, Liam knows I have a crush on you, but that’s it.  They don’t know anything happened, and certainly not the particulars of it.  I admit I’m a little gossipy, but I would never tell anyone my sexytime deets.”

Harry drew a shuddering breath, scrubbing his hands over his face and still not looking Louis in the eye.  “Are you…”

“No, Harry, I’m not _lying._  Jesus.”  Louis felt exasperated, annoyed and even a little bit angry that Harry could think he was the sort of person who would be that knowingly cruel.  But he pushed the feeling down right away.  Harry was obviously hurting.  And it was obviously some kind of recent wound.

Louis stepped closer, kneeling down in the dead leaves and starting to shiver.  “Harry,” he said, tentatively.  He reached for one of Harry’s hands and took it in his, feeling how rough and cold it was.  He squeezed.  “I really didn’t mean to hurt you, and I am so sorry.  I -- I’m just trying to figure out…  Like, what’s going on?  What’s going on in your head about this?”

Harry rolled his eyes in a pointedly hostile way, but he didn’t take his hand back.  “I know I’m acting like the biggest baby.  I just feel like I’m embarrassing myself over and over again.  Like a big boulder of embarrassment, just gaining speed as I roll downhill.  Just a total fucking idiot.”

Louis snorted, and Harry flashed a narrow-eyed glare at him.  But Louis squeezed his hand and jumped up to sit on the log next to him.  “H,” he said, in a soft voice, “I could never think that about you.”

Harry let out a broken sob, and crumpled.  Louis immediately moved to wrap him up in a hug.  He pressed a kiss to his temple, and just started talking.  Rambling, really.  He still didn’t know exactly what was going on, but he knew that he didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding on Harry’s part about what he, Louis, was feeling.

“I really, really, _really_ like you, Harry.  I feel like I glow when I’m around you.  You’re my favorite person to be with, and I’m so happy they put us together as roommates…   Except that Liam said that if we got together it would be roomcest, but Liam can fuck off, actually.  Niall was only laughing at him.  And I swear, I made the joke not even _connecting_ it to you in my head.  Like, I’ve been so miserable this week, thinking that I made a fool of myself asking you to be my boyfriend after one hook-up.  Like, who does that?  I thought you thought I was desperate and clingy.  And then you stopped coming to the room, and I felt _so_ terrible.  Like, just shitty.  It’s shitty when you’re not there; that’s what I think.  I felt also, like, maybe I took advantage of you?  Like, we went too far and I made you uncomfortable and that was awful of me.  I’ve noticed how you don’t like to talk about sex, so…”  Louis paused and took a deep breath.  “I’m sorry.  And I don’t care if it’s stupid and pathetic.  I still want to be your -- I mean, like at least could we maybe…  Like, will you go on a date with me?”

Harry sniffed, still crying, shaking his head with a look of unbelievable sadness and uncertainty.  “I can’t.  I can’t be your boyfriend, Louis.  I’m sorry.  I’m so...”

Louis felt a fresh stab of pain, but he couldn’t just walk away.  He had to know _why._  “Is it because you’re not attracted to me?” he asked.

Harry’s eyes widened, and he shook his head again, emphatically.  “No!” he said.  “God, Louis --”

“You don’t like me -- my personality?”

Another tear rolled down Harry’s cheek and he grabbed the front of Louis’s shirt, looking absolutely desperate.  He pulled him into a wet, sloppy kiss.  Louis’s mind reeled, and blood rushed into his cheeks with another shiver.  He kissed back, feeling Harry’s plump lips, tasting his tears.  They were almost crushing each other for a moment, they were grabbing each other so hard.

Then Harry broke it off with an anguished sound.  “I can’t…  You don’t understand.  I’m practically in love with you!”

Louis almost started to cry, his breath hitching as he brushed a tear off Harry’s cheek with his thumb.  His eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness, and he could see Harry so well -- every little twitch of his mouth and his big, wet eyes, full of regret and something else he couldn’t identify.

“Why can’t you be with me, then?” he asked.  “Is it homophobia?  Your family?”

Harry lowered his eyes and shook his head.  “No.  It’s me.”

Louis pulled him in again with a sad sigh, and they sat there like that, clinging to each other for a few minutes.  Then Louis was hit with a particularly wracking shiver, and Harry pulled back, looking at him carefully for the first time.  “You don’t have a coat on,” he said.  Then he looked down.  “Or _shoes?_  Louis…”

Louis chuckled.  “Give a man some warning before running away to the woods next time.”

Harry rolled his eyes, this time in a fond way, and shrugged off his parka.  He draped it around Louis’s shoulders and practically lifted him off his feet, walking them back down the path to the dorm.

“Why is it you?” Louis whispered, nuzzling his head on Harry’s shoulder, before they had fully left the cover of the trees.

Harry didn’t answer, but he opened the door deliberately, jaw set, and guided Louis inside.  He stood staring at him for a moment in the lobby, and then seemed to make a decision.  He cast his eyes down.  “Take a hot shower first,” he said.  “I’ll go kick Liam and Niall out of the room.”

But they were already gone when Harry and Louis got back upstairs, controllers discarded and pillows strewn about, TV off.  Louis checked his phone, and saw a text from Liam.

“They got hungry, he says.”

Harry shrugged.  He started toeing off his shoes, and nodded toward the door.  “Go take your shower, warm up, and then we’ll talk.”

Louis grabbed a towel and some body wash and went out into the hallway, feeling like he was walking on shifting ground as he made his way to the communal bathrooms.  He was nervous, little butterflies tugging his stomach one way and then the other.  What was Harry going to tell him?  What was so horrible?

_Does he have some sort of… some sort of fatal disease?  Is this A Walk To Remember?_

By the time Louis was done soaping himself up and rinsing himself off, he’d half convinced himself that Harry was on his deathbed.  He raced back to the room with the towel around his waist and plopped himself down on Harry’s bed without even drying himself off properly.

Harry was sitting curled up at the head of the bed, feet tucked under him.  He’d been reading a book.  When he looked up, his cheeks went red.   _“Louis.”_

“Are you dying?”

Harry’s mouth dropped open, and he made a scoffing noise.  “What?”

Louis crawled over to him, not caring about how much his loose towel was being dislodged, and grabbed his hand again.  “Just tell me you aren’t dying, please.”

“I’m not dying, Louis, _Christ!”_  Harry snatched his hand away and put his book in his lap.

Louis sank back down onto the bed, suddenly limp with relief.  “Okay, thank fuck.”  He became suddenly aware that his cock was totally exposed.  He giggled.  “Whoopsie.”

Harry quickly snatched up Louis’s damp towel and tossed it over him again, as though he were scared of something.  His shoulders were tense, and he was deliberately looking at the blank wall.

“Harry?” Louis asked, tentatively.  “Is it that you’re afraid of my penis?”

That finally got a grudging smile.  Then there was silence for another half a minute, Harry clearly psyching himself up to talk.  “Not exactly,” is what he finally said.

Louis didn’t ask anything else, just waited for Harry to continue.

“I came out to my friends halfway through senior year, and they were all awesome about it.  Especially Brian, this guy who I didn’t know that well.  He’d just transferred in and started to hang out with us.  He was cute.”  Harry shrugged.  “And I kind of knew.  He was blond, and he just seemed sweet.  We got really close last spring.”

“Okay,” Louis said, keeping his voice neutral.  He wished Harry would look at him so that he could nod to encourage him to keep going instead of saying something.  He was afraid his voice was going to crack.

“So then Brian came out like, right before the end of the school year.  And we -- my friend group -- did the whole supportive thing again, and it was just nice, you know?  We had a big party for graduation.  Brian and I were drinking together and...”  Harry blushed, and his eyes flicked toward Louis and then down at the book in his lap.  “We went upstairs to make out.”

Louis’s fists started to clench involuntarily at the thought of someone else kissing Harry, and he relaxed them.  Harry went on.

“And basically what happened, like I’m not going to go into specifics…”

“That’s fine,” Louis said, quickly.

“Basically what happened is that I came really fast.  Like _really_ fast.  And Brian laughed, and was like ‘oh, that’s pathetic,’ and then he asked me if I could get it up again, and I couldn’t.  It was terrible, he tried until it started to hurt and it was just… it was just terrible.”

“Oh, God, Harry.”  Louis reached out to touch Harry’s elbow, just to give him a bit of physical comfort and encouragement.

“It was totally humiliating.  And he never got off at all, and then…”  Harry breathed in deeply and twisted his lips around, like he was deciding how much to say.  A tear dropped off one of his lashes and onto his cheek.  “Well, he wasn’t quiet about it.”

“Jesus!”

Harry shrugged, breaking Louis’s contact with his elbow to wipe the wetness off his cheek.  He just smeared it around and looked helpless.

“That’s awful,” Louis said.  “That’s completely, unforgivably shitty that he would do that; I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

Harry was quiet for another few seconds, and Louis waited to see if there was more to the story.  That seemed to be it, though, and finally Harry drew his arms around himself and looked up at Louis, as if waiting for him to speak.

“I guess I don’t understand why it means you can’t be with me?”  Louis raised his eyebrows hopefully, trying to think, trying to put himself in Harry’s place.  “Unless… I get it if you feel like you can’t trust me, at least not right away, but --”

“I do, though,” Harry murmured.  He reached over and took Louis’s hand, and squeezed it.  “Even when my stupid brain was trying to convince me that you had already told Niall and Liam, I knew deep down that you would never.  And I accept your apology, by the way.  You didn’t know any of this, and you clearly didn’t react like Brian.  You’re not a jerk.”

“Then why?”

Harry’s shoulders slumped.  He ran his thumb up and down the side of Louis’s hand, over and over.  “It wasn’t just a couple of times getting over-excited,” he said.  “I… It happens every time.”

Louis blinked.  “Every time, like…”

“Like when I --” Harry blushed, “when I masturbate, it usually takes about forty-five seconds.  If I try to really draw it out I can sometimes make it last two minutes.  With someone else there, it’s like… Danger, Will Robinson."

“Oh.”  Louis couldn’t help the surprised expression that flitted across his face.  “But when I walked in on you, you were eight and a half minutes into that porn clip.”

Harry snorted.  “Well aren’t you observant,” he said, with a teasing half-smile.

Louis nudged him with his shoulder.  “Shush.”

“That was my fourth orgasm you saw.”

“Did more than see it,” Louis said, smiling and nudging Harry again, almost tickling him.  He was both testing the waters and trying to cheer Harry up, and he really couldn’t help the part of his mind that was thinking about watching Harry come over and over again, _bam bam bam_.  “So explain to me why we can’t date?”

“Um,” Harry said, letting out a sharp, incredulous breath.  “Because I could never have sex with you?  Obviously not if I were the top.  And trust me, I come just as fast from being opened up.”

Louis felt a sudden flush rise from his groin to his chest, and his cock twitched under the thin towel.  All this talk about sex and orgasms was starting to affect him, and now he was thinking about Harry spurting untouched from just his own fingers.  “Yeah,” he said, gruffly, “well.  You could fuck me with a dildo, you know.  I have one.  It’s purple!”

That surprised a laugh out of Harry.  When he raised his eyes to meet Louis’s again, his cheeks pink, it looked as though he were beginning to hope.

“And as for the other way,” Louis said, “you said you can come multiple times in a short span.”

Harry shook his head quickly.  “I couldn’t with Brian.”

“Because you were drunk and panicking,” Louis said, gently.  He squeezed Harry’s hand tightly, and brought it up to his lips.  “I’d be sweet.  Except for my intimidating penis.”

Harry laughed again, and his tense body started to slowly relax.  The vibe in the room was changing.  He blew a breath out and turned to Louis, with one of those smiles you can’t keep off your face, that makes your cheeks hurt eventually because you can’t stop.  “Let me have another look?” he said.

Louis nodded, glancing down at the half-tented towel.  He let Harry take it off him.  Harry inched closer, pretending to inspect Louis’s dick, and they both watched as it got harder and harder.

“It’s cute,” Harry shrugged, although his eyes were dark.  “Functional.”

“It’s not a three-bedroom bungalow,” Louis said, giggling.  “ _Functional_. Are you a real estate agent?”

“I think it needs a little staging,” Harry said.  “You should put your boa on.”

Louis collapsed on the bed laughing, and pulled Harry on top of him.  Then they were kissing.  It was tongue and heat right away, Harry’s denim jeans roughing up Louis’s sensitive thighs, and unabashed sounds.  They kissed until Louis was aching with it, until he was grabbing wildly at Harry’s ass and rocking him up and down in simulated motions that were driving them both out of their minds.

“I’m…”  Harry gasped.

“Let whatever’s gonna happen happen,” Louis whispered, and flipped them over.  He put his hand on the front of Harry’s jeans and felt Harry shudder, once, twice.  He felt his eyes grow wide with wonder as he watched Harry come.  “God, that’s so hot.”

“No it’s not,” Harry panted, still gasping through the aftershocks.  “It sucks.”

“Fuck that, I’m vain.  It makes me feel like, super attractive and powerful.”

Harry laughed, stretching out languidly and taking off his shirt.  He tried to stop laughing and couldn’t, not until Louis was on him again, kissing him.  This time it was slower and sweeter, and Louis felt delicious warmth enfold him as he ran his hands down Harry’s bare chest, exploring every contour.  He rutted into Harry’s belly, making them both moan softly.  Harry didn’t get hard again, but as soon as he started to go tense, Louis broke off the making out and kissed both of his palms.

“The only pressure that exists here is whatever you’re putting on yourself,” he said.

Harry sighed, and nodded.  “Thanks.  It’s still disappointing though, like…”

“Hey.”  Louis lifted Harry’s chin.  “I’m not disappointed.”

Harry nodded again, and Louis wasn’t quite sure that he believed him.  But Harry shuffled out of his jeans and underwear anyway, revealing the drying mess that had been trapped in his boxers.  He was comfortable with joint nudity, at least, and Louis counted that as a win.  They kissed and shivered together in the slightly cold air of the room, and then Harry drew his covers up over them both.  When his big hand found its way to Louis’s cock, Louis jerked so hard he almost fell out of the narrow bed.  His erection was suddenly all he could think about, so good, Harry’s hand on his cock felt _so good..._

“I think that’s what romance novelists call an ‘ungodly moan,’ ” Harry said.

Louis half-held back another strangled sound as Harry kept working him over, slow and intense.  “You think I’m going to pinch you and tell you to shut up, but I don’t… even… _ahh,_ oh my God, Harry -- I don’t care.”

Louis heard Harry chuckle, and closed his eyes.  He gave himself over to the sweet, building sensation, not bothering to mute anything that was coming out of his mouth anymore.  It was like Harry was drawing the tide in, and all the water was bliss, bliss…  Like he was opening up new worlds.  Louis'd never had a handjob like this -- never met someone with beautiful hands like Harry’s.  He came with another loud cry, all over Harry’s fingers and down his own thighs.

 _“God,”_ he moaned.  “Please be my boyfriend.  I’m going to do some really embarrassing begging Harry, please.”

When he opened his eyes again, Harry was blushing and looking incredibly happy with himself.  Louis was beyond delighted to see it.

“I don’t know,” he said, pretending to consider.  “You make terrible sex sounds.”

This time Louis did pinch him, and Harry flinched back, laughing as he tried to cover his nipples against further attack.

“Shut up, I make normal sex sounds.”

“I think you mooed at one point.  Like a cow.”

Louis scoffed.  “I did not _moo.”_

They both fought off another round of giggling, and Louis shuffled closer to Harry again, reaching up to play with his hair until they were both quiet and contented.  There were a few moments of easy silence, Louis drawing his fingers through Harry’s curls and softly rearranging them.  Then --

“Yes,” Harry said, quietly, the tips of his ears pinking.  “Okay.”

 _“Yes!”_ Louis cried, stabbing an arm out of bed to punch the air in victory.  “We’re going to be the best boyfriends!”

Harry laughed, biting his lip and looking more than a little nervous.  “If you say so.”

Louis pushed Harry’s shoulder down so that he was flat on the bed and then crawled right on top of him, plastering their bodies together until Harry shivered.  He was still soft, had never been close to getting hard again the whole time he was jacking Louis, and Louis could feel him starting to radiate tension.  “I do say so,” he whispered.  “You don’t have anything to worry about.”

Slowly, experimentally, Harry brought his arms up to encompass Louis, hugging him tightly.  “Okay,” he murmured, his voice muffled in the crook of Louis’s neck.  For a moment it felt like Harry was about to say something else, but then he just hugged Louis harder.

Louis let him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted a shorter chapter than I meant to today because my daughter got sick and I didn't have time to finish up the last scene I was writing! I hope you liked it though and that it relieved the angst somewhat.
> 
> (oh my god reading this back i'm terrified it's way too ridiculous and melodramatic)
> 
> Also, this story is spiraling out of control and there might be four chapters total. I will plan to do the next update two weeks from now, the first Friday in October!


	3. Chapter 3

For the next two weeks, Harry felt like he was living in a rom-com.  Louis held his hand whenever they walked across campus together, scarves wrapped around their necks and beanies on their heads, yellow and brown leaves falling around them.  He surprised Harry in the library with surreptitious tea and Oreos, and he snuggled close to him even when they were both concentrating on their reading.

His expressive hands always found their way to Harry’s thigh in the dining hall, just light brushes as his wrists moved fluidly and his eyes sparkled with conversation.  Harry couldn’t get enough of that, couldn’t stop his smug smile sometimes when he thought about how this gorgeous, sexily camp boy sitting next to him was _his._  His _boyfriend._  Who he got to wrap his arm around when they watched Brigadoon and Victor/Victoria in Harry’s bed.

But they still slept separately, most of the time.  A lot of their kisses were in public now, and they were chaste pecks.  Harry kept waiting for Louis to make another move in private, for him to prance around half-naked or come back from the shower with his towel slipping down like he used to.  But it didn’t happen.  Consistently.  And they didn’t talk about it.  Consistently.

Harry wondered what he was supposed to do.  Was Louis waiting for him to say something?  Was he moving deliberately slowly because he still thought he’d pushed Harry too far, too fast that first time?

 _Or,_ the thought hit Harry’s gut with a sickening thud, _is he not as okay with… it… as he says he is?_

He was in the library, curling up the corners of the pages of his Intro to Classics textbook and biting his lip.  It didn’t take long for him to spiral.

_He feels guilty.  He’s too nice.  He is extremely beautiful and kind and he won’t let you down because he feels sorry for you.  He’s being a pity boyfriend.  He doesn’t want more…  That’s pathetic, Harry.  You are pathetic._

Harry gazed down at a translation of Carmen 66.  He knew that the things he was saying to himself in his head weren’t really true, or at least that they were skewed beyond their foundations of truth by his own self-loathing.  But they were easy to think.  It was such an easy hole to sink into; it took no effort at all for Harry to slide down into that dark, comforting place where it felt good to hurt himself with his own thoughts.  He sighed, and his eyes caught on a few words:

 

                                    …How deeply your anxiety has

eaten away at your sad interior! Your senses had been

snatched away, and how your mind failed you then, when you

were anxious with all your heart!

 

Harry punched out an annoyed breath.  “Shut up, Catullus,” he muttered, slamming his textbook a little louder than was necessary.

He got up and saw that it was already dark outside.  He’d been in the library for at least four hours, and his joints were screaming at him.  The campus looked like a pitch black void beyond the sliding glass doors, and he didn’t want to leave the yellow pool of warmth by the reference desk.  But he wrapped his scarf dutifully around his neck anyway, slung his bag over his shoulder, put his head down and trudged out into the cold.

“Oof.”

“Hey.”

Harry ran face-first into a strong shoulder, and felt hands steady him as they pulled back.  It was Liam.  His expression morphed into a big, goofy grin when he recognized Harry, as though their running into each other was a hilarious coincidence worthy of a sitcom plot.  “Fancy meeting you here!”

“I don’t know if I would call it fancy,” Harry said.  “At most it’s business casual.”

Liam’s thick brows furrowed for a moment, and Harry remembered that he had promised himself, upon coming to college, not to spout out the punny associations his mind was always manufacturing in the midst of conversation _._  Not unless he wanted to confuse people.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head.  “Stupid joke, sorry.  Nice to see you, man.”

Liam’s expression cleared.  “Hey, no problem.”

Harry moved to walk past him, head down again, but Liam grabbed his elbow.   _Oh, here we go,_ Harry thought.  Liam had read something on his face, and now he was going to perform thoughtfulness here in the cold in front of the library, like a good friend.  Harry braced himself for it.

“You okay?  You look worried or something.”

“Fine,” Harry said, unconvincingly.  He shrugged, and repositioned his scarf under his chin.

“Yeah, well,” Liam said, patting his arm.  “Take it easy.”

Harry nodded.  Then, as Liam was turning to go, he piped up again, surprising himself.

“Liam?  Has Louis told you anything about… or like, asked you for any advice about anything… romance-related recently?  E.g., AKA… stuff about me?”  His voice squeaked a little, and he cleared his throat.   _Why am I doing this?  Why am I so insecure?_

Liam laughed.  Harry blanched for a second.  He felt his stomach lurch sideways, but then Liam shook his head, brown eyes dancing.  “Dude, he’s actually stopped with all that recently.  He seems really happy with you.”

“Stopped?”  Harry felt his eyes going wide and owlish, and his thinking was jolted onto new paths.

“Yep,” Liam said.  He shifted his weight, clutching the strap of the messenger bag that was lying across his chest.  “Before you guys got together he asked me for advice about you _constantly_ , like did I think you were straight, and how could we find out without being obvious, and all this stuff about your shoulders.”

“My shoulders?”  Harry was lost.

Liam chuckled.  “He was also really worried that you were working too hard, and needed to have more fun.  I mean, with him, specifically.  Hence the Mario Kart.  But also I think in a genuine way, he wanted you to relax and learn to enjoy the college experience.  He’s a nice guy, you know?”

Harry blushed, fiddling with the edges of his scarf where the knit was starting to unravel.  “Yeah, I like him.”

Liam’s eyes twinkled.  “Did you have as big a crush on him as he had on you?”

Harry let out a little squawky laugh that he instantly regretted, clapping his hands over his mouth for a second.  “I don’t see how anyone could have had a bigger crush than I did,” he said, with a shaky breath.

“Good.”  Liam nodded like everything was settled.  “If something’s bugging you, just talk to him.  Tell him straight out.”

_Oh, please._

“Yeah,” said Harry, haltingly, after a long moment.  He turned the idea over in his head, wondering why the straightforwardness of it was so unappealing.  “I guess I could.”

 _No, I couldn’t._ His pre-college life had been full of elaborate passive-aggressive rituals with both friends and family, intended to spare everyone the embarrassment of Harry having to ask for things.  “Are you cold?” instead of “I’m cold, could you please shut the window?”  Or “I’m terrible and the worst; I’m definitely going to fail this quiz,” instead of “Do you have a minute to help me figure out this equation?”  And of course the evergreen “Oh my God, I’m such a toad” instead of the absolutely un-sayable “Please tell me how good I look.”  Harry hated asking for things, especially emotional support.  And he was terrified of upsetting Louis by suggesting that he was doing something wrong.  Louis was already taking on _so much_ with Harry -- maybe that would be the final straw.

Harry’s instinct was to take the smoothest path, the one full of hints and tiny signals designed to get Louis to take the initiative.  Going home to the dorm in a funk and dropping comments about how fat he was getting on Sodexo food, for example.  Then, in his Prince Charming fantasies, Louis would respond by sweeping him off his feet and saying all the right things, effortlessly filling the hole in Harry’s self-esteem as they made out and gave each other magically long-lasting handjobs.

“I think you should give it a shot,” Liam said, and _wow_ , he sounded really earnest.  “Really.  I honestly think that no matter what, Louis would want to know what’s going on in your head.”

Harry shrugged and nodded -- more a nod to concede that Liam had a point than to say, Yes!  Adult discussion-having!  That’s what I’m going to do!

He was torn.  In his head, he wanted Louis to be Prince Charming, wanted him to have read the whole script, to already know that Harry was feeling insecure about their lack of sexual encounters since they’d started officially dating.  In reality, Harry knew that Louis was just another boy.  A boy who hadn’t washed his sheets since the start of fall term and who had once, fully seriously, attempted to use deodorant on his feet.  A good, open-hearted boy, but not a superhuman or a mindreader.

 _Rom-com thinking._ Harry’s intro-level Philosophy class had just had a discussion about the concept of magical thinking the week before.   _Rom-com thinking,_ Harry wondered. _Is that what I’m doing?_

But taking the plain old “have an adult conversation” route seemed terrifying.  Harry would have to admit he wasn’t fully happy.  That he and Louis weren’t doing things perfectly.  That something needed to be fixed.  Not only would it be embarrassing -- and Harry wasn’t fully recovered from the last embarrassing confession he’d made to Louis -- but it might put Louis on the defensive.

“So?” Liam pressed.  “You’ll talk about whatever it is?”

Liam seemed so convinced.   _Louis had a crush on me,_ Harry thought.   _He likes me._

“Yes,” he said, not feeling at all sure.  “I think…  I actually think I will.  Thanks, Li-li.”

He let a little grin spread across his face as Liam reacted to the nickname, rolling his eyes good-naturedly.

“Great,” Liam said.

Harry nodded and turned to go.  He’d taken about five steps when he heard Liam call, “See you Friday, Hair-hair!”

Harry held up his hand in acknowledgement and laughed all the way back to his dorm, his steps feeling light and tentative and a little terrified.  He was brave.  He could do things, could initiate _things,_ just as well as Louis could.  He could be a candid, normal human being, communicating with other human beings in a rational way.   _I’m eighteen.  I am an adult.  Louis likes me._

Louis jumped up from his desk when he got in, unwrapping Harry’s scarf for him and pushing himself up on his tiptoes for a kiss.  Harry savored the warm press of their lips, and noticed how Louis’s hands wandered over his shoulders, lingering there.

“Liam just tried to give me a nickname,” he said.  “Hair-hair.”

Louis took his hands off Harry’s shoulders and doubled over in silent laughter.  He flopped down on his bed.  “I love that big dork.”  His face was flushed, his hair a little mussed.  His t-shirt had a hole in it, and he looked delectable.  Harry almost groaned with how much he wanted him.

“C’mere, honey.”  Louis tilted his head, inviting Harry up onto the bed.  “Wanna watch Newsies?”

Harry felt his heart do a flip-flop, and he took a breath to steady his nerves.  He stayed standing, twisting his hands together in front of him.  “Actually,” he said, finally, “there’s something I wanted to ask you about.”

Louis’s eyebrows flew up in surprise and then he sat forward, expression evening out.  “Shoot,” he said.

“Well,” Harry said, toeing off his shoes and clearing his throat, wondering if they could have done this over text so that he wouldn’t have had to worry about what his hands were doing the whole time.  “It’s been like, almost two weeks?”

He stopped, desperately hoping that Louis would be able to read where the conversation was going and take over for him.  But Louis just tucked his legs up under him and continued to look interested and expectant.  Harry shrugged off his coat and retreated to his own bed, wanting to put a little distance between them.  He couldn’t look at Louis, so he started to unpack his bag.

“Two weeks since we started dating,” he clarified.  He saw Louis nod out of the corner of his eye.   _Shit._  Harry could feel himself fumbling, and went for a half-measure.  “I was just… I was wondering… Could I give you a blow job?”

 _Coward, coward, coward,_ he told himself as relief washed through his body.  He’d sidestepped, he knew it, but now Louis was happily pouncing on him and he didn’t have time to feel bad.  They were laid out, tongue-kissing, groins rubbing on each other and their tangled legs half-off the bed.  It only took Harry thirty seconds to reach the danger zone.

“Stop, stop,” he whispered, pushing Louis off him and scrambling to sit up.  His chest was heaving and he squeezed his eyes shut, making his whole body tight.   _Don’t do it.  Don’t.  No._

“Harry?” Louis asked, tentatively.

“Don’t want to come yet,” Harry said, roughly.  “I just…”

“Hey, it’s okay.”

Louis tried to lean in again, but Harry shrugged off his touch and turned toward the wall.  “Just gimme a sec,” he said.  He took a deep breath and tried to counter Louis’s unbelievably arousing proximity with thoughts of gardening and baby ducklings.

“You don’t have to try to control it.”

“Just --” Harry held out a hand.  “One second.  I appreciate it.”

“Okay.”

Harry had his eyes closed, but he heard the mattress creak and felt the shift in weight as Louis retreated to the far end.  He read a certain defensiveness in it.  A _jeez, Harry, I was just trying to help._ The feelings of utter wretchedness were flooding back in, and Harry blinked away harsh tears.  He was useless, he was useless, and his dick was like a tight, throbbing ramrod in his pants still, even though his chest was collapsing.  It couldn’t give him a break even now.

“So,” he said, trying not to sniff too audibly as he put up a thumb to surreptitiously wipe away the moisture at the corners of his eyes, “That went well.”

“Harry --”  There was something in Louis’s tone, a mixture of hurt and surprise.  Well, Harry knew he had sounded sarcastic.

“Just don’t even pretend this isn’t why you haven’t initiated anything since we started going out.”

Harry finally turned his head from the wall to look at Louis, and saw that he’d gone a shade paler, and seemed genuinely shocked.   _And worried,_ Harry thought.   _He’s worried about me._  Harry wasn’t too deep in his emotional hole to recognize that for what it was, rather than twisting it.  Louis really did care about him.  Harry felt his heart break a little.

“Harry,” Louis started again, closing his mouth and swallowing before shaking his head.  “I’m sorry.  I thought you wanted to go slower.  That’s what I told you I would do, and I meant it.  Just because we’ve done stuff in the past doesn’t mean there’s an expectation on my part --”

Harry threw up his hands, huffing out a frustrated breath.  “But we _have_ done stuff.  Why didn’t you want to do it again?”

Louis’s mouth dropped open.  “Because you were obviously uncomfortable both times!”

“I got through it pretty well the second time,” Harry said, defensively.  His erection was finally starting to go down a touch, but it still felt heavy, all warm and tight between his legs.  Everything was fucking confusing.

“Oh my god, Harry,” Louis said, and now he was scrambling on his knees over to Harry and taking his hands.  “I don’t want you to have to _get through it.”_

“Well,” Harry said darkly, even though Louis’s hands felt so good squeezing his, and the cloud over his heart was starting to lift.  “This is how it’s sort of going to have to go, though, if I want to hold out and make it last.”

Louis looked him in the eyes, and Harry felt a bit guilty again for putting him through all this.  He was astounded by how mature Louis seemed, how steady and comforting his hands were, how his head tilted, revealing his graceful neck as he decided what to say.

“What if I really didn’t want you to hold out, though?” Louis asked, finally.  “What if I _wanted_ you to come right away?”  His eyes flickered down and then back up, almost shyly.  He was serious.

Harry let out a weak laugh.  “Please.  Who would want that?”

Louis squeezed his hands.  “Me.  I wasn’t kidding last time when I said it was a turn-on.”

Harry rolled his eyes, and squeezed back.  His heart wasn’t racing anymore, and he was starting to feel less as though he were on the edge of a terrifying precipice, but he still didn’t believe Louis.  “You’re just saying that.”

“Yeah, I’m not, though.”  Louis took a deep breath and licked his lips.  “I’ve actually be thinking about it a lot.”

Harry felt his whole body shiver as Louis clutched his hands even tighter, pulling them over to his lap, near the crotch of his sweatpants.  “Harry,” he said.  “Can I show you?”

Harry nodded.

“See,” Louis went on, voice dropping a register as he leaned into Harry’s neck and started whispering, leaving feather-light kisses as he spoke, “I’m a bit of a narcissist.  I like the idea of someone getting overwhelmed by me.  I like thinking about you trying to hold it…”

Harry shuddered hard as Louis emitted a whimpery little moan into his neck, and then started to suck gently.  It felt like electricity pumping into a live wire.  Harry tried not to pass out, to breathe normally.  Then Louis shifted, tugging Harry’s arms around him and resituating himself so that he was straddling Harry’s lap, hands massaging his shoulders.  “... And trying to hold it, and hold it, but then…”

Louis moved his hands, trailing his fingertips down the center of Harry’s chest.  He lifted the hem of his shirt with one hand and pulled down his waistband with the other, just enough to pop the head of his cock out.  Harry gasped, seeing it there, pink and pretty and already bubbling with a bit of moisture.

“Louis,” he said, brokenly.  He could see just the hint of Louis’s stomach, his faint trail of pubic hair and the beautiful jut of his pelvic bones.  “More.”

Louis lifted his shirt higher, over his abs and the gorgeous expanse of his stomach, displaying himself for Harry.  “You like what you see,” he said.  “And you know that if you can just hold it in long enough, you’ll get to fuck me.  You’ll get to wrap your hand around my cock and bring me to the edge while you’re fucking me.  And it’ll feel _so_ good.”

Harry felt like he was barely clinging to reality.  He delved under Louis’s sweatpants from the back and got his ass in his hands, squeezing roughly.  “Why are you doing this to me…” he moaned.  He was still staring at the peeking tip of Louis’s cock, couldn’t look away.

“And all you have to do is wait,” Louis said.  “That’s all you have to do, that one thing.”

Harry had to bite his lip to keep from crying out.  His whole body was tense.  He wanted to press Louis down into the bed, to run his hands all over him, to get his mouth on him, _anything._  But he was afraid that if he even moved…

“But you can’t,” Louis continued.  “You can’t wait, and it’s because I’m so hot.  I’m so hot and you get so worked up that I make you come early every time.”

With that he leaned forward and pressed their clothed cocks together, grinding down once, twice.  Harry groaned as he came hard all over the inside of his boxers, making a sticky mess in his jeans, clutching Louis tight.

“Oh my god,” he moaned.

“See?” said Louis.  “I like thinking about how to get you hot.  I _really_ like thinking about experimenting to see how far I can take things before you come.  Like, getting inside your mind and exploding it.  Jesus, that sounds weird.”

“You definitely… definitely have succeeded.”

Harry drew his hands out of Louis’s pants and started to rub his back, cradling him in his lap, not sure what he was feeling.  It wasn’t the normal embarrassment.  Not the real kind…  It was almost like a weird, sexy echo of it.  Totally different, like he was pleased that he’d fulfilled Louis’s fantasy.  Everything had been re-framed so that it was Louis’s fantasy that involved him coming in his pants, not any real-life shortcoming of Harry’s.  Harry had done what Louis wanted.  He’d given him something.  It gave his orgasm a deeper layer of meaning.

“So you liked that,” Harry said, wanting to make sure.  One look at Louis’s flushed face and glassy eyes was enough to tell him.

 _“Yeah,”_ Louis breathed.  “And I think it felt better that time for you too, didn’t it?”

Harry was quick to nod.  “I may have to take a few days to like, process this.  By which I mean we should keep…  You should keep showing me, please.  Thanks for not running away from me,” he whispered.  He threaded his hands through Louis’s hair, and Louis nuzzled his cheeks into Harry’s palms, looking totally content.

“Don’t have to thank me for that,” he giggled.  “But I think it should be you who runs from me, now.”

“How come?”  Harry was totally mesmerized by the state Louis was in.  He was soft, and happy, and almost glowing with unresolved horniness.

“Because,” Louis said, and his voice was still low and sexy.  He was still blushing with how hard he was.  “I basically want to control you.  And like, make everything about _me._  I totally get off on the power of it.  It’s sort of weird and I feel selfish.”

“I liked you controlling me,” Harry said.  “I like it when you initiate things.  It was driving me nuts that you weren’t.”

Louis moaned and took one of Harry’s hands.  Then he brought it down between them and thrust his pelvis forward, maneuvering it so that Harry was cupping his hard-on.

“So big,” Louis said.  “Your hand…  I’m so small in your hand.”  He shivered, and Harry felt himself start to respond again.

“We’ll talk about this more later, right?” Harry asked, as Louis guided his hand up and down and simultaneously grinded his mostly clothed length on it.  “Like the controlling.  The level of controlling.”

“Definitely,” Louis said.  “I can stop, too, if you want to talk right now.”

 _“Nope,”_ Harry said.  “No, I’m…  This is.  You are exactly what I want.”

Louis gasped, eyelids fluttering shut.  “Kiss me.”

Harry did, and he tried to pour all of his relief and excitement into it.  Louis wanted him for real, and cared about him for real, and Harry finally could see at least the start of a path forward for them.  He felt like something, some hard knot in his chest that had been there for almost half a year, was beginning to dissolve.  Louis’s tongue found its way into his mouth, and Harry moaned, feeling himself finally start to half-harden again.  He went rigid immediately, trying not to lose it.

Louis broke away.

“Shit,” Harry muttered.  Why was it so difficult the second time around?  “It’s like one problem and then the opposite.”

“Babe,” Louis said, dragging a finger across Harry’s slightly-swollen bottom lip like he was mesmerized by it.  “I’m about to remind you of something very important that you may have forgotten.”

“Okay,” Harry said.  He heard a slight note of apprehension in his own voice, his stomach going hot and cold.  “What is it?”

“You promised to blow me.”  Louis’s eyes flashed darkly, even as his cheeks pinked up even more.  He held Harry’s gaze and knelt on the bed, stripping off his shirt and tucking the waistband of his sweatpants lower, under his balls.  His whole length was exposed, standing straight up.  “Do you need your dick to be hard to blow me?”  He looked so imperious, and sounded like a prince.  “Real question,” he added, in a softer voice.

Harry was staring so hard he almost couldn’t answer.  But he forced himself to shake his head, and say “No,” quietly.  “Please.”  His mouth was actually watering.

“Then take off your shirt.  Get on your hands and knees for me.”

“You just want to see my shoulder muscles,” Harry said, slyly.  He stripped, and tried to flex while he was doing it.  Then he situated himself like Louis had asked.  It felt oddly good.  The sticky mess in his pants was just the right sort of uncomfortable… the recent memory of Louis making him come, forcing him over the brink too soon, and then demanding this…  Harry almost couldn’t even feel what was going on with his dick.  It almost didn’t matter anymore, because his head was beginning to feel like it was wrapped in drugged cotton.  Like he was having the high of his life, just from kneeling and waiting to give a blow job.

“Oh, do I?”  Louis looked incredibly happy that Harry was back in a bantery mood, smiling brilliantly at him even as he pulled his sweatpants fully off and surged up onto his knees, so that the head of his cock was a few teasing inches from Harry’s mouth.  “You know you shouldn’t talk during a blow job, Harold,” he said, thrusting forward so that the moist tip dragged across Harry’s closed mouth and down his chin.  The precome dried immediately on his lips, a bit tacky and completely amazing.  Harry shuddered.  “It doesn’t work well that way.  Like trying to talk to the dentist, you know.”

Harry threw his head back and laughed, his whole body shaking with how happy he was.  But then Louis was saying, “Take me,” in that commanding princely voice.  Harry opened his mouth and received.

Louis was in him, but also completely encompassing him -- his smell, his taste, the feel of his cock.  When Harry breathed, it was like drinking.   _Louis, Louis, Louis…_  Harry’s big mouth was uncoordinated, too sloppy.  His tongue was moving jerkily, and Louis was starting to thrust, but it was wonderful.  It was the most wonderful thing he had ever felt.

“Is this okay?” Louis whispered, as it started to get more intense.

Harry pulled off, leaving a string of spit behind before he brushed it off his lip.  He almost shivered with pleasure when he saw the expression on Louis’s face, staring down at him.  Like he was _good._  Like he was doing well, like he was exactly what Louis wanted, too.

“It’s perfect,” he said.  His voice sounded hoarse, and he thought he saw Louis take in a ragged breath before he closed his eyes and put his mouth back to work.

Harry felt one of Louis’s hands threading through his hair, guiding his head not quite gently.  Louis started thrusting in rhythm after that, going further and further and experimenting with staying fully inside for seconds at a time.  Harry had trouble breathing for some of these spans, and felt his head swimming.  He tapped Louis’s leg once, and Louis withdrew.

“I like it,” Harry said, first.  “I like that.  I just wanted to say.”

Louis looked slightly embarrassed with himself, but pleased.  “Good.”

“Just five seconds max, okay?”

“Yeah.  Got it,” Louis nodded.

Harry grinned at him, and his facial muscles felt like they were moving like sweet molasses.  His cheeks were partially numb, partially on fire, and his heart was beating so hard he was lightheaded.  He realized with a sense of amused detachment that his erection was not only back, but practically boring through his jeans.

Then Louis was gripping his hair again, guiding himself in.  Harry rocked forward on his hands and knees, feeling the ache and relishing it.  He thought he could tell that Louis was getting even _harder,_ and Harry tightened his lips, making a little pillowy barrier for Louis every time he took the head of his cock out and pushed it back in.  Louis was moaning with every other breath, his strong thighs shaking.  Harry felt like he was going to mess his pants again any second.

Then Louis drew away one last time and fisted himself, almost instantaneously striping Harry’s face with come.  His whole body was shuddering and shaking, and Harry smiled as he felt the warm liquid hit him, felt Louis’s cock smearing it all over his cheeks and lips.

“Fuck,” Louis said, a few seconds after he’d finished, his reddened cock still hanging over Harry’s face.  “That was the greatest orgasm I’ve ever had.  That was like twenty orgasms in one.  Thank you.”

“Course.”  Harry rolled over onto his back, feeling sweet relief in his joints and muscles.  He slowly stripped his jeans and underwear off.  He was so hard again, and heady with it.  He closed his eyes, just enjoying the feeling.

“Well look at you, now,” Louis said, even as Harry felt a Kleenex dabbing gently across his face.

Harry preened.

“May I taste it?” Louis asked.

“You may,” Harry said, grandly, waving his hand.

Then Louis’s mouth was sinking down onto his cock, and Harry came again immediately with a shuddering gasp.  He’d once masturbated eight times in a row, and hadn’t felt half so spent and satisfied.

When they’d turned off the lights and snuggled into each other, naked and as wiped-up as they could be with just dry Kleenex, and had reiterated that they’d talk the next day and do some research and set up some boundaries, Louis squeezed Harry’s shoulder and let out a surprised little laugh into his neck.

“What?”

“I was just reminded of something,” Louis said.  “From my computer science class.”

Harry was feeling so warm and like he’d been so successfully sexy, he was half in a dream already, consciousness barely hovering where Louis was caressing his arm.

“Sometimes things happen with coding that you don’t necessarily intend to happen, and don’t expect.  Bugs.”

“Bugs,” Harry said.  “I’ve heard of them.”

“Sometimes they need to be fixed,” Louis said, “but sometimes they actually make the project better.  Like my prof was telling us about this game where the programmers accidentally blew up all the characters’ heads to five times their normal size.  But then everyone liked it so much that they put a toggle in the finished game and called it ‘Big Head Mode.’  And it was a really popular feature.”

“So my dick is a feature, not a bug, is that what you’re trying to say?”  Harry’s voice was slurring, he was so tired, but he still grinned.

“Yeah.  I’m buying what you’re selling, Styles.  I like playing with Big Head Mode on.”

“Not a sexual failure,” Harry said, “just compatible with an elite few.”  He kissed Louis’s forehead and snuggled deeper into the pillow.

“More than a few, I’d bet.”  Louis wrapped his arm around Harry’s side possessively.

“Only need you.”  Harry whispered.  “Only you...”  Then he let his mind slide away into sleep, feeling completely content in body and spirit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why these chapters keep ending with Harry going to sleep. I didn't set out for it to be that way. Feature or bug?
> 
> [Here](http://www.negenborn.net/catullus/text2/e66.htm) is the translation of the Catullus Harry is reading, if anyone is curious.
> 
> I'm not sure when the next chapter will be posted, but I CAN say that it will be like a string of different sexytime variations that show the development of their relationship (hopefully, otherwise it'll just be like a lot of sex and Harry orgasming a lot which is fine too). With more Louis POV. And prob a bit of Harry reflecting on some stuff.
> 
> Hope you liked it!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is sort of an epilogue, and it's basically all sex. A sexy addendum, if you will.
> 
> (Warning for slightly intoxicated sex in the context of a well-established relationship)

**January**

Louis clutched two presents to his chest as he raced up the stairs to his dorm room.  One was beautifully wrapped, with tight, tidy corners and a fancy gold ribbon that complemented the maroon paper.  The other was basically a ball of tape.

“It was a hard shape!” Louis said, as he burst through the door and dumped them both into Harry’s arms.  Harry in turn dumped them onto his half-made bed and unceremoniously pulled Louis into maybe the tightest hug Louis had ever experienced in his entire life.  He let out a tiny gasp of surprise and pleasure before relaxing into it, enjoying the way Harry’s strong arms were tugging him up onto his tiptoes.  Not for the first time, Louis felt a zip of excitement as he noticed how small he was compared to Harry.   _ Small... _   He cleared his throat and broke the hug, filing that particular thought away for later.

“You got taller,” he said, mock accusingly.  


Harry just grinned and leaned down to kiss him firmly on the mouth.  “I missed you.”

“So you got taller?”

Harry shrugged.  “I figure if I keep growing, soon I’ll be able to see you from all the way across campus.  I’ll just live in the arb and spy on you.”

Louis laughed, and swatted Harry on the arm flirtily.  “I didn’t know I signed up for an ent boyfriend.”

“Hoom-hom.”

Louis felt his eyes crinkling up with more laughter, and he buried his face in Harry’s chest to muffle it.  Harry was only wearing a thin white t-shirt, soft and much-washed, and his body heat was radiating through it, warming Louis’s still-numb cheeks.  Louis huffed in a breath and sighed in contentment at the familiar smell, his arms snaking around Harry again for another hug.

“Where’s all your stuff?” Harry asked, after a second.

“I may have left it in a pile at the bottom of the stairs so I could come up here and give you your presents first.”

Harry chuckled and kissed Louis on the top of the head before untangling their bodies again.  “Come on.”

After they’d hauled Louis’s three _ —three _ —suitcases upstairs and Harry had finished making both their beds with newly washed sheets, they sat down in the middle of the floor.  “This is your nice present, aka the one my mother wrapped,” Louis said, handing Harry the maroon box with the gold ribbon.  “And this is your naughty present.  From me.”

“Oh my god,” Harry muttered.

“Open the nice one first!”  Louis was almost wiggling with excitement, biting his lip and tapping his fingers on the ground as Harry carefully peeled back the paper.

Inside the slim box was a soft lavender sweater that Louis had found at the mall, purposefully oversized and perfect for lounging in.  Harry slipped it on immediately with a big grin, laughing at how the baggy sleeves gave him sweater paws.  “It’s so cozy, thanks.”

“It’ll be even better once it’s broken in a bit,” Louis said.  “Mom helped pick it out, too.”

“I’ll have to write her a thank you note, then.”

Louis smirked.  “Trying to impress someone, Styles?”

“Maybe.”  Harry just smiled sweetly.  “Or maybe I write everyone thank you notes as a matter of course, because I’m a very polite young man.”

“I suppose I’ll just have to give you more presents to find out which it is.”

“That  _ would _ be one solution.”  Then Harry was turning around and sliding something out from underneath his bed.  It was a big bag with ribbon tied to it and sparkly tissue paper coming out the top, and he plopped it in Louis’s lap with an eager grin.  “I only got you a nice present, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, baby, thank you.”

Louis untied the ribbon, reached into the cloud of tissue paper and pulled out -- dear Lord, the  _ tiniest _ rainbow teddy bear.  He couldn’t stop himself from putting his hand to his mouth in delight.  Harry had somehow found tiny sunglasses for it, and a tiny feather boa.  There was even a little soccer ball attached to the bear’s foot.

“Is this…?”

Harry blushed and lowered his eyes.  “It’s just something silly, but I saw it and it reminded me of you, and then… I sort of dressed it as you.  It sort of snowballed.  I may have three more outfits in my backpack.  Is it weird?”

“No, oh my gosh, it’s quirky!”  Louis hugged the bear to his chest and beamed at Harry, waiting until Harry had raised his head again.  “I  _ love _ it.  It can be my desk mascot.”

Harry laughed, looking a little relieved.  Louis arranged the tiny feather boa and set the bear down in his lap, caressing its tiny head as he smiled at Harry, scooting forward a couple inches so that their knees were touching.  “Naughty present time?”

Harry’s slightly pink cheeks went full-on crimson as he picked up the misshapen lump of taped-together snowman wrapping paper.  He bit his lip and started to fiddle with it.  “Just how naughty is this?”

“Open it and see.”

Louis was endlessly endeared when he saw that Harry was taking just as much care with Louis's horribly-wrapped abomination as he had with his first present.  The crumpled snowmen were untaped and smoothed out and re-folded.  And then Harry’s beet-red face was buried in his lavender sweater paws.

“Louis, oh my God.”

The bottle of lube that Louis had ordered online fell into Harry’s lap, and Louis felt his heartbeat ramp up as he saw the front of Harry’s jeans begin to strain, just slightly.

“I’ll go lock the door,” Louis said.  “And put this sweet little baby bear someplace safe.”

“Louis…”  There was an unmistakable whine to Harry’s voice now, one that Louis had become intimately familiar with during their late night phone conversations over winter break.

When he had made sure the door was locked, Louis took a moment to arrange Teddy Bear Louis on his desk and then came to stand over Harry.  They’d discussed a lot of things over the break, conversations that were easier for Harry to have over email and text, and now Louis was going to put some of it to use.

First he asked, “Do you like it?”

“Premiere anal lubricant,” Harry read off the bottle.  “Jumbo-size.  Very practical of you.”

“I know!”  Louis beamed.  He knit his fingers together and squeezed, feeling nervous tension fill up his body even as he kept his voice nonchalant.  “Up for test driving it?”

Harry set the bottle carefully on the floor and heaved himself up to sit on the bed.  “It’s two in the afternoon, Lou,” he said, “but obviously yes, I am up for it.  Literally, even.”

Louis clapped his hands in excitement.  He felt a bit frantic, full of responsibility and bursting with ideas.  He had hoped this would happen, but now that the moment was here, he felt scattered.  He began to busy himself with preparations, digging in the closet for one of Harry’s towels and drawing the blinds.  “Lie back,” he said, his voice breaking only a little.  “Head on the pillow.”

Harry did so with a soft smile on his face.

“No wait,” Louis said, a bit flustered.  “Sit up a bit.  So you can see.”

Harry dutifully complied, and Louis felt a zip of nervousness up his spine.  What if he screwed up his role, here?  Harry was trusting him with a lot.  Louis had spent the past couple of weeks reading extensively about how to order someone around in bed in a loving and affirming way, and he still wasn’t sure about the exact tone to strike.  What if he ended up turning Harry off?  Adding to his insecurities?

_ That’s what the time outs are for,  _ he reminded himself.   _ Either of us can call time out to talk.  Nothing too terrible can happen as long as we talk to each other. _

“Um,” Louis said, taking a moment to clear his throat.  “Unbuckle your belt.  Get your dick out.”

Harry drew in a shallow breath and reached down.  He did as Louis said, parting his flies and maneuvering his underwear so that it sat below his balls.  His cock was half-hard, a bit redder than the soft skin of his abdomen that showed when he rucked his t-shirt up.  It was pointing downward for now.  When Louis licked his lips, he saw it twitch visibly.

“Good,” he said.

“Should I take my pants all the way off?” Harry asked.

“Did I ask you to take your pants all the way off?” Louis asked, in a slightly sarcastic voice.  He smiled to soften it, and saw Harry blush again.

“No.”

“Just watch.  Don’t do anything but watch.”

Then Louis stripped off his puffy vest and slowly pulled off his long sleeve thermal shirt.  He didn’t make a big production of it, not yet.  He just stood in front of Harry and got shirtless.  But even that was making Harry’s eyes wide, his fingers jerking where he was holding them at his sides, palms planted on his gray flannel sheets.  Louis looked down at his dick.

“Getting hard already?” he asked, pretending like he didn’t know it would happen.  “Just from this?”

Harry nodded, and a pained little whimper escaped his throat.

“It’s a great cock,” Louis said, making his voice flirty.  “I like making it hard for you.”

Then he started to unbutton his corduroys.  He left the fly open, teasing Harry with the waistband of his boxer briefs before toeing off his shoes and turning around.  He bent down, pretending to fuss with something on his own bed.  “Does my butt look good in these?”  He knew it did. He was absolutely positive.

But it was still  _ amazing _ to hear the gravel in Harry’s voice when he said “Yes.”

Louis straightened up and hooked his thumbs over the waistband of both the cords and his boxers.  He could hear Harry breathing heavily behind him, and it sent blood pumping hotly through his chest.  He could feel his own pulse in his fingers; his heart was in his throat…  Then he slowly,  _ slowly _ lowered his pants.

_ “Lou.” _

Louis turned around, his underwear halfway down his ass, and saw Harry’s head lolling back against the wall.  His eyes had a glassy shine to them, and his dick was rock hard, lying up on his belly now, pointing slightly to the right.

“Do you need a time out?” Louis asked.

“Nope,” Harry said.  “No, I do not.  I just.  You’re so beautiful.”

“Thank you, baby.  Now keep watching.”

When Louis was fully naked, he rolled his hips a few times.  He smacked his own ass, feeling it jiggle and relishing the sound of Harry’s sharp gasp.  Then he stood up and got the lube, and his feather boa.

“Since the bear has one,” he explained.  But he smiled, feeling delightfully naughty as he wrapped it around his shoulders.  He stroked it as he let Harry see the front of him, running his fingers over its barely-there softness and the tiny, poking quills.  He was getting hard now himself, but he wasn’t in Harry’s state yet.  He was still revving up.

“What are you going to do with that?” Harry asked, eyes flicking to the lube.

Louis dropped it theatrically on his own bed.  “Just watch.”

Then he turned around again and climbed up on hands and knees.  The feather boa trailed over his bare feet as he uncapped the lube and smeared some of it on his fingers.  Then, without too much preamble, he reached back and started to play with his hole.

He circled it once or twice, getting used to the sensation and spreading the lube around, and was just about ready to slip a finger in when Harry gasped.

“Louis,” he said.   _ “Louis. _  I need to come.  I don’t know if I… I might…”

“Don’t touch yourself,” Louis chided.  “Here.”

He stopped what he was doing and went over to Harry, who looked absolutely wrecked despite not having done anything beyond pulling his own dick out.  He was straining, veins standing out in his neck and tears starting to form at the corners of his eyes.

“Are you going to come untouched?” Louis asked.

Harry shook his head.  “Don’t think I can.”

“Are you going to come if I touch you?”

Harry nodded, closing his eyes, more little whines coming out of him unbidden.

“Mm, can’t hold it in, can you?”  Louis wrapped his already lubed up hand around Harry’s cock and gave it a few rough strokes.  It was thick and hot, and it spurted hard almost immediately.  “That’s right, baby.”  Harry’s body convulsed, a deep groan of satisfaction ripping out of him as his pelvis bucked up.  Louis held him down with the other hand, milking the rest of his orgasm out of him.

“That big, gorgeous dick of yours sure makes a lot of jizz.”

“Actually, I think it’s my balls that make the jizz,” Harry murmured, cheeky glint back in his eyes now that he was slumped and sated.  He’d made a complete mess of Louis’s hand, and the area around where his jeans were parted.

“Shush,” Louis said, swatting Harry’s chest lightly and letting his messy fingers catch and drag on the fabric of his t-shirt.  Harry rolled his eyes and grinned as he wiped the rest of his hand off.  “Now just stay there.”

He flounced away, feeling very confident in his curves, and retrieved the lube bottle.  When he got back to Harry he popped a hip, fully aware of how the tip of his own erection was now peeking out through soft, pink feathers.  “You can keep staring, but hold out your hand.”

Harry grinned sheepishly and did so.  Louis squeezed a generous dollop of lube into his palm and over his fingers.  “Now start jacking off.”

Harry did so immediately, taking his half-soft length in hand and rubbing his lubed thumb aggressively over the tip.  He let out a soft hiss as he turned his hand over and tugged outward, palm down.  Drops of pearly come were still clinging to his abs where his shirt was rucked up, and Louis watched, entranced, as Harry’s muscles flinched and shivered.  Louis slowly climbed up on Harry’s bed and straddled him without touching him, other than where his knees were squeezing into Harry’s thighs.  He raked Harry’s ruined shirt up higher and placed a hand on his sternum, appreciating how small it looked there.  He could feel Harry’s heart pounding.  Harry bit his lip, staring into Louis’s eyes, and his hand quickened its pace.

“You’re being very good,” Louis said, remembering that Harry had asked for frequent validation during sex.  “You’re absolutely perfect.”

Harry gasped and threw his head back, his beautiful neck bared, and Louis pounced on it.  He relished the feeling of Harry shivering under him, coming completely apart as Louis sucked at his sensitive skin.  When Harry started emitting broken little whines again, Louis knew he was close.  He pulled off Harry’s neck and stood, bringing his cock to Harry’s mouth.

He didn’t ask before taking himself in hand and just thrusting in, and Harry accepted him eagerly.  It was something they had talked about, Harry wanting to feel as though once he’d consented to a sexual encounter, his entire body was completely at Louis’s disposal.   _ I want to feel used, but in a nice way, _ he had said a few weeks before, over the phone, when they were both wrapped up in their childhood bedrooms two states apart.  They’d both giggled afterward.   _ No, I think I know what you mean, _ Louis had told him.

Now, as Louis actually took the liberty they had both discussed, it felt like his brain was whiting out.  Harry’s sweet, pink mouth parted around him as he thrust in, over and over.  It was like a sex fantasy Louis had never actually dared to imagine.  He felt heat begin to curl in his groin, moving through him like warm honey.  He went faster, couldn’t help it, panting.  Five seconds later, Harry came again.

Louis let his own approaching orgasm recede again as he pulled out, admiring how puffy and spit-slick Harry’s lips were.  “Good, baby,” he said.  “Coming for me so fast again, I love that.”  He touched Harry’s tousled curls, gently moving them off his forehead as he sank back down into his lap.

“You’re so…  You’re so  _ much _ Louis, your body…  I couldn’t—” 

Louis smiled, aware of his own arousal, and leaned in to kiss Harry.  That was also something they had talked about—how much Louis enjoyed feeling  _ powerful, _ like he was so sexy that Harry had no control, like he could make Harry just come and come and come…  They kissed for long, slow minutes, both feeling taken care of.

Later, Harry finally got to finger Louis open, coming three more times in the process and making Louis lose it rutting down into the sheets.  They showered together (getting  _ looks _ in the bathroom that they ignored), aired out the room, and tramped down to the cave-like dorm basement, with its creepy study rooms that no one liked to use and its old washing machines.

They made out during the spin cycle.

  
**March**

Harry was in the library, studying with Liam and Niall, when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket.  He ignored it, trying to tease out all the different clauses in an epic Cicero sentence while writing down new vocabulary words.  Liam was muttering to himself.  He had an Anatomy and Physiology practical the next day, and was staring at muscle diagrams and softly saying things like,  _ “Sterno _ cleidomastoid.  Sterno lanterns.  Cleid… Clydesdale horse.  Mast of a ship.  Lantern-horse-ship.  Sternocleidomastoid.”  Harry wasn’t sure his elaborate mnemonic devices were actually doing anything beyond confusing everyone at the table, but Liam looked determined nevertheless.

He felt a nudge to his ribs, and glanced over at Niall.  “Someone sounds like they want to get in touch with you.”

Harry shook his head and blinked a few times, coming fully back to reality from the study high he’d been on.  His phone was buzzing again.

“Thanks,” he said.  “Sorry, I’ll just…”

He took his phone out of his pocket and thumbed open the lock screen.  Then he let out a squeak and clutched it to his chest, but not before Niall had caught at least a fleeting glance of the picture message Louis had sent.  He grinned, and then started to snicker as Harry tensed up.

“Niall—”

“Aww, your boyfriend has such a cute little—”

“Shut up, Niall.”

Harry pushed out his chair and stood up, walking quickly to the single stall restrooms at the other end of the floor.  He was getting harder with every step, even as he felt completely awash in guilt about letting Niall see his phone.  He knew that Louis had a minor thing for exhibitionism, though, and hoped it would be okay.

When he had locked the door of the restroom, he thumbed open his phone again.

**Hey, honey.**

**Harry.**

**HARRYYYYYYY**

**I think you need a study break, young man. [smirking face emoji]**

**[IMG.jpg]**

**Make it hard for me? [kiss emoji]**

It was a close-up of Louis’s soft cock, nestled against the crease of his groin.  Harry bit back a groan as he stared at it.  He was starting to zone out when his phone buzzed again in his hand.

**You there?**

Harry’s hands shook as he typed out a response.

**_Niall saw!  It was an accident, and like he didn’t see that much, I don’t think.  I unlocked my phone while he was looking, I’m SO SORRY!!!_ **

Harry tried to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth as he saw the three little dots pop up on Louis’s side of the conversation and waited for them to turn into words.

**Uh.**

**That’s fine.**

Harry bit his lip.

**_Really?_ **

He saw the dots pop up and disappear a few times, as though Louis was debating how to answer.  When the next message finally came through, Harry let out a breath and rolled his eyes.

**Did he like it?**

**_Oh my god Louis, let’s not get distracted.  (He said it was “cute.”  And “little” :p)_ **

Harry felt like Louis deserved to hear that last comment for rudely interrupting his study time with sexts, but didn’t think about it very hard.  He scrolled back up to the picture Louis had sent while he waited for the next text to come through, and felt himself fatten up in his jeans in about fifteen seconds.  He was gazing adoringly at the shape of Louis’s foreskin when he felt another buzz.

**ngl that turns me on, that niall said that, is that weird?**

Harry was a bit taken aback.  But he typed a quick **_No_** , and fought the urge to palm himself.

**We can talk about it later.  Have I made you hard, darling?**

A soft sigh escaped Harry’s lips, and he relaxed into the familiar rhythm of phone sex that they had established over winter break and perfected recently when Louis had to travel to weekend meets with the track team.  When Harry breathed in again, the air felt warm and deliciously slow to fill his lungs.  He concentrated on how his erection felt, heavy and thick between his legs.  How good it would feel to touch it.

**_Yes_ ** , he typed. **_I’m very hard._ **

**Show me.**

Harry unbuttoned his jeans and shivered as he drew the zipper down, feeling his balls vibrate.  He was already 80% there.  Slowly, he peeled down his underwear.  Letting his cock out relieved some of the pressure that had been building, but all Harry had to do was think about how he was standing in a public restroom at the library with a massive erection on display, taking a photo of it to send to his boyfriend who was probably actively wanking right now, and a fresh wave of arousal rushed in.  Harry felt almost dizzy with it.

**Gorgeous.  You’re so manly, so beautiful.  Now I want you to watch something, but don’t do anything else, ok?**

Harry nodded, vaguely aware that Louis couldn’t actually  _ see _ him nod through the screen, but then a video message came through, and Harry stopped thinking.

_ “Uh, uh, uh…” _  He could hear Louis’s voice, obscenely loud and echoing around the bathroom, as he watched him jerk off on the little phone screen.  It was always the best sight Harry was ever going to see, every time.  Everything about Louis was delicate and well-formed, from his wrists to his tiny fingers.  His cock was of a piece with all of that, and Harry was practically salivating as he watched Louis play with himself.  He felt it coming as he played the video a second time, not even bothering to turn his phone volume down.  He was going to fucking burst; he was going to come in the next minute, wasn’t going to be able to stop himself.

And instead of feeling like shit about it, he just felt a wild, joyful anticipation.

When he couldn’t stand it any longer, Harry pressed the call button.

“ ‘M gonna come,” he whined, as soon as Louis picked up.  Harry could hear choppy breath coming over the line, could practically feel the rhythm of Louis getting himself off.  “Louis, I can’t…”  Harry cut himself off again with another groan.

“Harry,” Louis said, voice soft and yet commanding.  “I want you to put your palm on your dick.  Press it into your belly.”

Harry didn’t waste any time doing it.  He was right on the edge of coming, and the almost-ness of it was almost the sweetest thing he’d ever felt.

“Move your palm in slow circles.  Pretend you’re here, and you’re humping me.  Pretend you’re right up against my belly, touching me, bare skin, and you just can’t hold it in.”

Harry shuddered.  He was coming before Louis even finished describing it, coming in hot, tight waves all over his hand.

“Oh god,” he gasped.  “I couldn’t…  _ Louis.”   _ Harry felt like he was being pulled in two directions, tugged up to a sweet high from the sound of Louis still fucking his fist on the other end of the phone line and sinking down to reality as his orgasm ebbed.

“You’re so good,” Louis crooned, his voice high and full of tension, still chasing his his own edge.  “So fucking good, wish I had your mouth.  No, your  _ thighs.” _

“If you can stop yourself, I’ll be back at the room in ten minutes and you can lube up my thighs and do whatever you want to them,” Harry said.

“Fuck,” Louis said.  “Deal.”  Harry heard him stop, heard his breathing come down, and licked his lips as he imagined how red and angry Louis’s cock must look right now, curved up against his stomach.  “See you in ten.”

“Okay.  Love you.”

“Love you too, please hurry.”

Harry made a little kissing noise into the phone and hung up with a grin on his face.  Then he cleaned himself up as quick as he could and splashed some water on his face before taking a moment to delete the text thread.  When he got back out to the table, Niall was smirking at him and Liam was still muttering non sequiturs.

“Elevator-ladyparts-Great Lake.  Oh hey, Harry.”

“Yeah,” Niall said.  “Hey Harry.  Got somewhere to go?”

“How can you be so blond and still look so devilish?” Harry asked, as he stuffed his books into his bag and slung it over his shoulder.  Niall cackled with delight.

Harry spent the walk back to the dorm fantasizing about what Louis was about to do to his thighs, and was fully hard again by the time Louis attacked him, completely naked, as soon as he came through the door.  They were now on their second bottle of jumbo-size lube, and Louis had Harry’s pants off and his thighs slicked up and was pinning him down, kissing him, when Harry came again.

The feeling of getting hard for the third time in quick succession as Louis thrust between his legs, snug up against his balls, was exquisite.

“So,” Harry said, gasping a little as Louis increased his pace, “got a thing for Niall, huh?”  He chuckled after he said it, Louis groaning and stopping.  Harry smiled into the sheets, and felt a little nip at his ear, a pinch at his side.

“Take that back.”

Harry just clamped his thighs together harder and rocked forward.  Louis popped out, and his cock ended up nestled near Harry’s crack.  “No,” Harry said.  “I’m intrigued, now.  You have to tell me.”

Louis started to thrust lazily, not getting much friction.  “It doesn’t have anything to do with  _ Niall,” _ he said.

“The exhibitionism thing, then?” Harry asked.

Louis made a contemplative noise , stopping for a second and sitting back so that he could part Harry’s cheeks and squeeze.  He ran a tacky thumb up from Harry’s perineum to his entrance, and started to massage.  Harry let out a muffled moan, perfect pressure on his most sensitive spot.

“It’s partly the exhibitionism thing,” Louis said.  “But that’s really more something I like to think about, versus actually  _ doing _ .  You know?”

Harry made a guttural noise that managed to sound like agreement.

“To tell you the truth...” Louis said, and then trailed off.  His hands stilled on Harry’s ass and he suddenly sounded hesitant, like he was a bit embarrassed.  Harry heaved himself up onto his elbows and twisted around to look.  Louis met his eyes and gave him a sheepish smile.  “To tell you the truth, it wasn’t the Niall thing, it was the… the  _ little  _ thing.”

Harry frowned, not sure what Louis meant.

“You know,” Louis prompted.  “Cute and little?”

“Oh,” Harry said, his eyebrows flying up.  Then he frowned again.  “Wait, what?”  Louis was telling him things that didn’t seem to compute with the Louis he knew, and he was confused.

“It turned me on that someone… not necessarily Niall… said my dick was little.”  Louis was starting to blush, rolling his eyes at having to spell the whole thing out.  Meanwhile, Harry could still feel his hardness against his ass.

“Wait…  _ really?” _

“You said it wasn’t weird!” Louis said, taking refuge in teasing.  “J’accuse, Styles!”  Harry could tell that his defenses were going up, but gently so.  He twisted fully around and propped himself up on his elbows.  Louis was straddling him.  His hands found the soft bits at Harry’s waist, and he played with them, kneading the flesh almost like a cat.

“It’s not weird,” Harry said, “I’m just surprised, a bit.  Because you always…”  He shrugged and nodded.

“I always  _ what?” _  Louis asked, crossing his arms.  His dick was still standing straight up, like an adorable little soldier.

“You hate being short.”

“I’m not short,” Louis said.

“You go up on your tiptoes in pictures with me!  And you tease me about being too tall.”

Louis scoffed and rolled his eyes.  “Well, it’s more of a just-sex thing, I guess!  I like having a bit of a small...  I like how it looks in your huge, stupidly giant hands!  It makes me feel...”  He stopped, huffing out a breath, and Harry thought that maybe he was still figuring it out.

“Louis.”  Harry sat up fully and gathered Louis into his arms, shifting their body language so that he was encompassing Louis rather than being physically dominated by him.  “It’s totally fine.  Nothing’s wrong.”

“I know,” Louis said, his voice slightly fond and exasperated.  He burrowed into Harry’s chest, cuddling and poking him at the same time.  “And this is exactly what I mean.”

“Hmm?”

“I like feeling like you’re bigger than me, and that I’m little.  It’s comforting.  And it has like, this sexual edge to it, especially because of what we like to do, you know?  When I’m ordering you around, I like knowing that you can physically stop me at any time, and are choosing not to.  It makes it hotter.”

Harry made a soft humming noise in his throat and kissed the side of Louis’s head.  “I can understand that.  My little man...”

Louis snorted, and swatted him gently, leaning back to gaze at Harry for a moment with love in his eyes.  He kissed him.  Once, twice.  “More of that, then,” he said, pinking up again.

Harry grinned, and took Louis in his hand.  His own erection had disappeared at the first hint of slightly serious talk, and he knew it wasn’t going to come back tonight.  That didn’t matter, though.  He reminded himself firmly that Louis didn’t mind, and concentrated on what he was doing with his wrist and his fingers.

“So small,” Harry said, feeling awkward at first, but determined to try.  He cleared his throat and watched Louis’s face carefully.  “Do you feel how easily I can wrap my hand around you?  Look…”  He closed his fist and brought it slowly up, over Louis’s cockhead.  “It just completely disappears.”

Louis shuddered,  _ hard, _ his eyes wide as he focused on what Harry was showing him.

“You’re about as long hard as I am soft,” Harry said in a teasing voice, thrusting his hips up for emphasis.  It was a bit of an exaggeration, and they both knew it, but it seemed to be having the right effect anyway.  Louis groaned and closed his eyes, slumping forward so that his head was on Harry’s shoulder, his nose buried in Harry’s neck.  He was quivering all over.

“My perfect, adorable little boyfriend.”  Harry was half-guessing what to say next, half-projecting and saying things he would want to hear.  “I love you so much.”

“Love you, too,” Louis said, in a breathy voice that almost got Harry going again.  Then he pushed himself up, off, and flipped Harry around, pressing him down into the sheets.  Harry shivered as he felt Louis’s strong hand holding him steady, keeping him pinned right at the small of his back.  He felt Louis’s blunt hardness against his hole, alternately putting pressure on it with deliciously simulated thrusts and quivering as Louis furiously jerked off.  It wasn’t long before he spurted up and down Harry’s crack, adding to the mess of lube there and between his thighs.

They were doing a lot of laundry this semester.

Louis grunted and rolled off him, and they rearranged themselves so that they were cuddling in a damp patch.  Harry felt elated.  Also, he kind of had to pee.  He pressed a kiss to Louis’s chin before starting to disentangle his limbs.  “Thanks for telling me that.  I love you.  And your small, yet intimidating dick.”

Louis hummed happily, stretching luxuriously as Harry got up off the bed.  “Thanks, babe,” he said.  “But if anyone asks, you still have to tell them that I’m 5’9”.”

Harry chuckled all the way to the bathroom.

  
**May**

“Thanks again.”  Harry smiled, relief still coursing through him because thank God, he finally  _ understood _ how to use Miller indices to label mineral facets.  He’d thought that taking Geology courses to fulfill his Science requirement would be easier than Chemistry or Physics, but Mineralogy was proving to be a very tough, if enjoyable class.

Harry’s professor smiled back at him as he half-stumbled out the door in gratitude.  “No problem, Mr. Styles.  Have a good afternoon.”

“You too!” Harry squeaked.  His heart was beating a little hard in his chest, but he managed to exit the office without falling over or doing anything else embarrassing.

He was proud of himself.  He’d needed help, and he’d gone to his professor and asked for it, and he’d gotten it.  And everything was fine.

_ I’m fucking mature! _  Harry did a subtle fist pump as he walked out of the Natural Sciences building.  It was a gorgeous spring day on campus, sunny and warm, with just the right amount of breeze.  Everything smelled fresh.  Harry never wanted to leave college.  He ambled over to the quad, meaning to check his mailbox in the student center, but was stopped in his tracks by the sight of a golden, shirtless figure in sweat shorts, running full speed right toward him.

“Harry!” Louis cried.  “Turn around!”

Harry didn’t think, he just turned in his tracks and ducked his head.  The next second, he felt Louis’s hands on his shoulders, the force almost enough to buckle his knees as Louis vaulted over him into the air.  He heard someone behind them yell “Holy shit!” as Louis tumbled to the ground four fully four feet in front of Harry, a bright orange frisbee clutched in his hand.

“Yes!” he cried.  He leaped up, stopping to give Harry an appreciative kiss on the cheek before running back to the rest of his intramural Ultimate team.  “Fuck yes!  Please tell me someone was recording that!”  Harry trailed along after him, grinning stupidly.

Liam had his phone out, and everyone gathered around to watch it again.  Harry sucked in an appreciative breath, tucking Louis into his side and squeezing his waist.

“That’s so sick, man,” Liam said.

“Can you fly?”

“It literally looks like a special effect.”

Louis’s cheeks reddened with pleasure, and Harry gave his belly a sneaky little pinch.  His hands were wandering lightly over Louis’s warm skin.

“Seriously, did you guys practice that?” asked a girl with a long, braided ponytail and a neon yellow workout shirt.

“That’s how he gets up to the top bunk,” Harry deadpanned, and everyone laughed as Louis made a show of fake-slapping his face.

“ _ As if _ we have bunk beds,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, you don’t?” asked the girl.  Harry hadn’t met her before, and figured she must be someone Louis only knew through the Ultimate Frisbee team.  “My roommate and I like putting the beds that way.  It uses the space more efficiently, don’t you think?”

“We have ours pushed together,” Louis said.  “Because we’ve found it’s more efficient.  For sex.”

The girl’s eyes widened for a moment, and then she let out an absolutely delighted laugh.  “Gotcha,” she said.  Harry felt absolutely smug as Louis’s arm wound around his waist possessively.  Their sides were plastered together now.  Harry was the king of Miller indices, his boyfriend was the king of campus athletics, and they were both going places.

*

Later, Harry watched tiny sparks rise up in the smoke from the campfire Liam had built.  They flickered under the dark shadows of the leaves and then disappeared, the smoke a faint smudge against the night sky.  Harry was in a clearing out in the arboretum, the one with the log where Louis had come to find him on that rainy night back in the fall.  Niall was playing guitar, and girls and boys were chatting and drinking around them—Harry was slightly drunk.  He was on the ground, Louis behind him, sitting on that same log.  Harry’s head was between his thighs.

“I decided that I never want to leave college,” he said.  “Or your thighs.  Can I just stay in your thighs?”

“Might be awkward running the 400 with you in there,” Louis said teasingly, ruffling his hair.

Harry grinned.  “You could manage.”

Louis pinched his cheek affectionately, and then leaned forward to shout something to somebody across the campfire.  Harry didn’t hear what it was, didn’t care what the prevailing conversation was right now.  He was so comfortable and warm and happy, and ever so slightly turned on.  Usually when Harry got turned on, there was no moment between 0 and 60 that he could stop and just… bask in.  But something about tonight—maybe because they were in public, combined with the alcohol, and the fact that Harry was so much more used to Louis now—something was keeping him at a very low, consistent buzz.  It was fragile, Harry felt.  And precious.

“Hey,” Louis said, running his small hands through Harry’s hair and rubbing relaxing little circles into his scalp with his thumbs, “do you wanna go have sex in the woods?”  Maybe Louis was a little drunk, too.  “We should totally go have sex in the woods.”

“Please stop talking about sex,” Harry said, groaning slightly.  He was too happy to be right where he was.  Also, he’d tricked himself into believing that he was now at least semi-immune to Louis’s body, his whole…  _ thing, _ his being.  Which wasn’t true.  Harry was about to move from pleasantly, secretly turned on to uncomfortably and obviously hard, and he didn’t want that at the moment.

“Okay,” Louis said, and dropped a kiss to Harry’s forehead.  He didn’t ask why, or sound disappointed.  He didn’t move away.  He just struck up a conversation with someone next to him about a reading they had to do in one of their English classes.

Harry sighed contentedly, and waited to see what would happen with his penis.  It was to the point where it would have to be taken care of sooner rather than later, but the situation wasn’t dire.  And that was fine.  Harry was feeling  _ extremely  _ mellow, and it was all very, very fine.

Their interaction got him thinking: he loved how direct Louis was.  Louis almost never read anything extra into anything Harry said, just took his words on their face and didn’t ask for explanations if explanations weren’t important.  It was so refreshing, and made Harry feel so valid.  Like his feelings about what to do or where to go didn’t have to be shaped to accommodate anyone else; like he mattered.  Harry, as an individual.

Harry had lived in a slightly more complicated world, with a mother who always downplayed her own wants while still managing to passively communicate them, and a stepfather who was great at picking up on her signals.  Harry had learned too, had learned to be self-deprecating, to brightly agree to things he didn’t want while subtly indicating that he didn’t want them, waiting for someone to notice.  He didn’t even realize that there were other people who didn’t do things that way.  It had lead to some minor miscommunication early in his relationship with Louis, until he realized that Louis  _ literally meant what he said _ almost all the time.  And he’d had to learn to be that direct right back to Louis in order to get what he wanted.  It still felt weirdly impolite to Harry sometimes, but it was leading to some other good things—he would never have been able to get up the courage to actually ask a professor for help back in September, even though intellectually he knew that’s why they had office hours.

Louis was rubbing off on him, Harry realized.  And Harry was learning things about being an adult, about the world.  And mineral facets.

“Louis?” he said, suddenly, coming out of his own thoughts.  “Thanks for rubbing off on me.”  He pressed his cheek against Louis’s thigh, holding one of his pretty ankles lightly.    


Louis chuckled, leaning over him with a wicked grin on his face.  “I thought you didn’t want to talk about sex.”

Harry snorted.  “I wasn’t, you doofus.”

“Oh, okay,” Louis answered.  “Well, thank  _ you _ for rubbing off on  _ me. _  I hope you continue to do so.”

“Shut up,” Harry said, laughing.  He flicked Louis’s ankle and then soothed it with his fingertips.  “I love you.”

Louis’s arms snaked around him and rocked him back and forth a few times.  Harry felt a wet, slightly beer-tinged kiss on his cheek.  “I love you too.”

A warm feeling took root in Harry’s chest, a beautiful, safe feeling that almost ached.  He wanted Louis’s lips on him, on his mouth this time.  He snaked his body around, going up on his knees in the dirt so that Louis could cup his face in both of his hands and draw him into a deep kiss.  As soon as Harry had his tongue in Louis’s mouth, the fragile barrier broke.  He was instantly hard, and very aware of it.

“Oh, Jesus,” he whispered lowly, breaking the kiss when they started to get catcalled.

Louis stood up, helping Harry up with him.  He flipped everyone off as Harry buried his red face in the crook of Louis’s neck, ready to burst with how happy he felt.

“Need to get out of here?” Louis asked, soft enough so that only Harry could hear him.

“I’m not having sex in the woods,” Harry said.

Louis laughed, and guided him out of the circle of light.  They made it back to their room, Louis stripping off his shirt and kneeling so that Harry could lean back on the just-closed door and come all over his collarbones.

Some minutes later, Harry got to enjoy five to ten seconds of thrusting into his partner before coming again, and immediately, enthusiastically switching roles.  “This is good,” he murmured.  He was still buzzed—not actually drunk, but just loose enough to say whatever inane or unfinished thought popped into his head.  “I go first, wham-bam, fun and done, and then you can fuck me for a  _ really long time. _  ‘S perfect.”

“I don’t know about a  _ really _ long time,” Louis muttered, fiddling with the condom.

They both moaned when he entered, Harry completely, effortlessly hard all over again.  “I’m so lucky,” he breathed, clutching Louis’s biceps and digging his nails in.  “This is the fucking best.”

“I know,” Louis said, hips picking up the pace.  He started to make those little  _ uh _ sounds Harry loved so much, powering into him over and over again.  “I think we have the best sex on campus, don’t you?”

“Um,  _ yeah, _ ” Harry said, arching his back and keening as Louis dragged a hand down his chest and wrapped it around his cock.  “Because I’m our secret weapon.”

Louis slowed down again and got in close with short, deep thrusts that hit Harry in the exact right place.  “Yeah, you fucking are.”

Harry wasn’t sure how many seconds after that it took for him to come—it didn’t matter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for bearing with me. This ended up taking longer (and being longer) than I thought. I hope it helps to cheer you up at the end of this sad, stupid week.
> 
> Also, gold stars to anyone who knows what muscle Louis's second mnemonic is for.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to Addy gloriaandrews, who has been the most supportive and wonderful friend to me. I've had lots of writing trouble this year, and the whole saga has involved putting some of Addy's and my shared projects on hold. But I'm back in the saddle now, everyone!!!
> 
> And yes, title from Instant Pleasure by Rufus Wainright, in memory of my own freshman year of college.


End file.
